


Stranger Things Have Happened: Y2

by Lockie



Series: When The Worlds Collide [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Content from IM3, Content from Thor:TTW, M/M, Very very extremely Slow-Built
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-06-19 20:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15517806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockie/pseuds/Lockie
Summary: It's Harry's second year at Hogwarts, but a lot more seems to be going on around him, his family, and his life...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'm back again! Yes it’s summer and I promised to start the second year in the summer...here we go.
> 
> I won’t be having a very regular updating schedule this time because of stuff in real life, so the duration between two updates is most likely around two weeks. I haven’t gotten a lot written but then it’s Harry’s birthday today (at least it still is if I'm counting it from my time zone) I’m starting it today!
> 
> Again, please excuse my English, hopefully it’s gotten better since the first year. Enjoy the first two chapters, and please comment and let me know what you think! :D
> 
> P.S. If you happened to land here and haven’t read the first year yet...I would recommend trying that one first. Otherwise it might get really confusing really quickly.
> 
> Disclaimer: sadly I don’t own any of those characters, unless I create an original one somewhere (pretty sure I haven’t yet)

_Hello Hermione!_

_So so sorry that I haven’t been writing to you/responding to your letter as much as I should have! Just wait I can explain—as a matter of fact, I only got most of the letters today. Even with technology it’s not that easy to communicate with Earth from Asgard…so if this envelope appears out of nowhere in your room all of a sudden, don’t panic, it’s my Papa’s magic working._

Hermione chuckled slightly as she read that line, unconsciously pinching the corner of the envelope. _Right, you scared me already_ , she thought. It’s lucky that she didn’t scream out loud when the package appeared...if she had attracted attention from outside the household, it would make infinite more trouble.

Her eyes scanned through the last line in that paragraph and raised an eyebrow curiously. It reads: _P.S. both you and Draco should stop sending me snacks. I mean, since they’re not getting to me, my Dad is eating all of them and he’s definitely taking in too much sugar._

(Maybe I’ll attach a healthy-diet-suggestion next time, Hermione thought, making a mental note to herself.)

_To very briefly sum up the situations and answer your questions, I’m well, Tom’s well, my parents are well, Dreki’s well, and we don’t have a cat. Why are you asking about cats anyway? We don’t keep cats around here, you know. These guys are too soft and squishy._

( _Did I ask him about cats?_ Even though she sent him multiple letters she was pretty sure she did not ask about cats...wait, did she?)

 _Tom and I went on a secret-mission-ish-trip at the start of the summer break with Aunt Natasha. Can’t tell you where we went or what exactly we were doing because of some secrecy policies, but there were quite a bit of fighting and spying and most importantly, training._ (Hermione started hiccuping nervously.) _Don’t worry, I didn’t get injured or died. Tom was super good at spying because he could get intel from the most impossible place while remaining unseen. Technically I could too, but none of Aunt Natasha or Tom would like me to get in danger. I’m just happy that magic is useful too._

_Very unfortunately the first letter you sent got lost in the crossfire somewhere. It’s marvellous how owls can actually track me down even when I’m in hiding in a place like that! Then the base’s defence system triggered and a lot of people ran out to shoot the owl. The letter burned itself and hopefully the owl escaped._

(Hermione remembered that...that poor owl came back, looking very alarmed, and squeaked all night that night, trying to tell her something...except she didn’t learn owlish languages at school. She should probably resend a copy of that letter just for the record)

 _For the same reason, you weren’t able to contact me through my phone. Then, directly after the mission ended, Tom and I got shipped to Asgard, which tellingly made it harder for communications. It was made worse because there’s a rare thing called Convergence happening—I’ll tell you more once I come back—which disrupts the usual enchantment that allows my phone to work on Asgard. So, nope, no more signal, no more phone games…_ (“Convergence.” Hermione mumbled. She jotted the word down on a sticker, thinking that she should look it up in Hogwarts library books when she get back to school.)

 _There still is a lot of fun stuff to do on Asgard, like hunting, but because Asgard was having a war with the Dark Elves I was more or less limited. Still is._ (Still frowning, Hermione bit her lips.) _It’s not affecting me or anything since literally nothing affects the palace and since the war isn’t actually happening on Asgard, but Papa had increasing amount of paperwork to deal with and can’t help me with receiving/sending letters as much. I didn’t want to bother the Gate Keeper either, since he looks over all of the Nine Realms, and distracting him from his task sounds like a bad idea. As for myself, I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not that advance in the brach of realm-crossing teleportation magic yet. Even with Dr.Strange’s ring it’s hard—even harder to target a destination as precise as your room. Good thing is that it sounded like the situation have been getting better, and Papa actually had the time to read me a bedtime story yesterday—maybe he’ll have time to help me with the letter tomorrow._

_I sent you a book from Papa’s collection on elves—you were trying to study them, right? I found more interesting books in the Asgardian library, but I can’t take them out of the palace. I hope you get to visit Asgard sometime, maybe during Uncle Thor’s regime, then you can enjoy the books too. The food here are all super high quality, but, honestly, Asgard needs House elves!! I could only imagine what food would taste like if House Elves cook them on Asgard. Btw I threw in a few grapes in the package. Try them!_

(At that, Hermione blinked and jumped out of her seat. She rushed to the package—darn, she totally didn’t notice there were grapes in them! Hopefully those fruits didn’t get crushed...)

 _Speaking of which, I’m having another friend on Earth visiting us right now. Not_ _my_ _friend really, she’s Uncle Thor’s human girlfriend. She’s a muggle too, and a scientist. The thing though, is that normally, humans from Earth aren’t allowed to visit Asgard. My Dad and I were exceptions because we were officially accepted into an Aesir family. It’s like a citizenship/passport thing—you get a green card by marrying one of the citizens, you know? Maybe that means Uncle Thor will be getting married soon—if he does then I’ll surely send you pictures of the wedding—but something in me was saying it’s wrong. Tom said it didn’t make sense either—at least Asgard didn’t have a custom of holding the wedding of a soon-to-be-King prince during a war. Something fishy seems to be going on here, but Papa’s not telling me what._

(Hermione frowned. But being this far from where Harry was, she couldn’t do anything. Not that she could do anything about Asgard anyways...but she _does_ want to.)

 _A—nyways. I’ve been ranting on about irrelevant stuff—sry I got too excited somehow :P Dreki’s getting big now—she’s the size of a rabbit right now and still loves grapes. Still refuses meat too. The only problem about her right now...is that I think she’s fallen in love with a flying key._ (As she read this Hermione completely choked on her own saliva.) _Remember that key with blue wings we took at the end of last school year? Yea, Dreki’s hoarding it in her nest and displaying what was recorded as standard Pygmy courtship behaviours towards it...it’s getting a bit worrying. I mean, what if she actually falls in love with a dead object??? I tried to take it away but she wouldn’t let me._

(Hermione really had to stop reading and get a sip of water in order to calm down as she finished this paragraph. What in Merlin’s name???! When she thought she wouldn’t choke and spit water on the letter paper, she sat down and continued reading.)

_I’ll be honest and say it’s a bad idea, but I got to practice magic here—Hogwarts-magic too! I didn’t suppose the Ministry could track if an underage student was using magic in another realm, plus I have my grandmother watching over me. It’s sort of a wonder, but apparently, not a lot of Aesir are magic users. Weird, since they all have the perfect inner-body construction to store and use seidr, and lots of technology here’s magic based too._

(Most probably a cultural thing, Hermione took note. They were a warrior race after all...but didn’t Harry also say both his Papa, who was a prince, and his grandmother, who was the queen, are magic wielders?)

_How’s your summer going? I mean, classes that teach you how to make food sound great...but then I won’t really trust British cooks. Are you still studying muggle science though? If you’re still interested in Dad’s gifted youth program you’ll reach the minimum required age by next summer. It would totally be WORTH it haha, and Stark Industry covers all the fees. Even if you’re not continuing science, don’t worry, Dad would definitely take students gifted in magic for his other projects too :P I really hope we get to work together sometimes._

(Hermione sighed. Right, now that Harry had reminded her about that...she’s not planning on giving up her sciences, _then_ adding all the magical subjects and her own research projects. Time. She seriously needed more time.)

_I’ll be coming back to Earth real soon, then we can go to the Diagonal Alley together. I wanted to ask Draco and Ron but I thought they would prefer going with their family._

_P.S. I know you like keeping records of letters...but things get really complicated when we’re using Aesir magic and stuff. I’ll keep it simple by stating that this letter will burn itself after you finish reading. Just be prepared!_

_Yours_

_Harry Stark-Lokason_

Wait. Hermione blinked as her brain tried to catch up with what she just read. What? This letter is going to...

Burn?

And right before her eyes, the thin, elegant piece of paper burst into green flames. Hermione yelled and threw the ball of fire away, then watched it continue burning with wide eyes. “Dear Merlin.” She only mumbled after a while, as the fire also disappeared, not leaving a single mark on her table. She stared at her table some more, before picking up a pen and starting to write a reply.

 _At least the grape tastes great_ , she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very quickly zooming through what happened on Asgard...

“I am old enough to at least stay a part of your plan!”

“First of all, you are not.” Loki glanced at Harry as he picked through the weaponry on display, “Harold, this is a Code-Red if we’re going by Avengers standard. I have informed you of every single detail of the situation that you deserve to know, and I trust you to know your own strength better.”

“I _do_ , which is why I’m saying that Ican help.” Harry waved his hands around, “I can protect myself too—you’re even taking Aunt Jane with you! You’ll definitely need someone to protect _her_.”

 _She would’ve been dead if Tom and I weren’t there yesterday_ was what he decided not to bring up.

To be honest, what happened yesterday scared Harry quite a bit too. Those really, really ugly things literally came out of nowhere! How in Valhalla could they even be still called elves?! The palace got half destroyed by the spaceship that crashed into it, then a huge fight broke out and everyone was shouting everywhere. Harry was on his way to his room, as his grandfather had instructed him to do when he saw an elf that was a lot bigger than the rest sneaking into Grandma’s quarter…maybe not an elf at all. Aunt Jane was literally screaming by the time Harry sneaked into the compartment. Tom managed to distract it enough before that beast stabbed Grandma Frigga so that Harry had the chance to cut off its hand with a portal—along with a sword that was apparently cursed. As Harry later learned, if the creature had stabbed anyone with that sword the person would be instantly dead, no matter how small the wound was—the problem goes, oops, Harry really didn’t know where he sent that sword through the portal. He’s pretty sure he’ll at least beat Aunt Jane at least in fighting a dark elf.

Thor cleared his throat. Dreki squeaked back in response, protectively hovering over the Mjolnir. Harry couldn’t help sighing once he noticed the exchange on the side. Right. He managed to get Dreki out of her obsession with the flying key...and now she’s obsessed with _Thor’s hammer_. Which, honestly, was not very helpful.

Loki turned around. He bent down and stroked Harry’s hair, speaking with a soft but stern voice: “As I had stated, this is a Code-Red, which includes life-threatening situations, realm-destroying artifacts, rule-breaking and a lot of bad decision-making. You’ve done enough as an eleven years old, saving your Aunt Jane yesterday.”

“I’m _twelve_.” Harry crossed his arms.

“Not for one more day, going by Eastern Daylight Time. We’re having the cake tonight, remember? And as previously scheduled, you’ll return to Earth tomorrow and attend another feast prepared by the team. We are not planning to change _that_.” Loki’s lips curled up a bit, before he gave Harry a pat on the back and straightened up again, “I believe I have explained the situation very clearly, my dear. I do wish you’re not trying to argue for a fruitless cause...again.”

“But...” Harry cut himself, considered his statement, then started again, “Didn’t Grandpa say you shouldn’t leave Asgard too?”

“Yet another reason why you should not join us.”

 _It’s not going to work._ Tom whispered in Harry’s ears. _Papa’s not going to change his mind, and if anything, I don’t suppose Uncle Thor want us with them either._

 _I_ _really_ _want to go_. Harry replied sulkily. He’s been wanting to go on a mission with his family forever, and after his experience last school year, plus his training with Aunt Natasha, he thought he would be ready. It would’ve been even better if Dad’s here too—maybe instead of Uncle Thor. That’s what feels like a “family mission,” right?

What really got his nerve, though, was the fact that Uncle Thor and Papa were taking _Aunt Jane_ with them. This makes _no_ sense—why would they choose _her_? Just because she’s Thor’s girlfriend? Look, the only things she beat him at are her age, life experience (as she _is_ a much older adult, a fact Harry can’t disagree with,) and science, none of which would be of any use for a Code-Red mission that was clearly landing on the magic side. Yet, _she_ would be part of the team. He, plus Tom, who was obviously more useful and better team members, would not. Putting aside everything else, it was just unfair.

But Harry supposed there wasn’t any point in continuing the argument; like Tom had said, Papa’s not changing his mind. Finally, Harry put down his arms and pouted, accepting the decision: “Fine, if you so insist. When are you leaving then?”

“We shall depart in three days.” Thor was the one to answer this time. He was still trying to get around Dreki to his hammer, without much of a success—the little dragon can be quite protective of things she had...fallen in love with. “There will be no need to fret for us either—I promise I’ll keep your father safe.”

“Don’t tell your grandpa where we’re going.” Loki made a face. “ _He’ll_ fret. And since when do _you_ keep _me_ safe?” He turned to comment on Thor’s statement, signalling at the little dragon, “God of Hammer who has lost his hammer to some other creature? Again?”

Tom laughed in Harry’s head. _The first time was when Thor got dressed up as a girl, right?_

 _Hey, we are discussing serious topics here._  Harry protested.  _Stop laughing._

Tom snorted.

“God of _Thunder_ , not _Hammer_ , brother. You should not be losing your memory at such a young age.” Thor said solemnly—Harry couldn’t really tell if he was being serious or just pretending—and quickly reached out to summon his hammer. Dreki squeaked nervously as the hammer suddenly flew away, then followed it up to land on the hammer again. Thor frowned and shook his hammer around a bit—but nope, she’s not planning to leave any time soon.

“Ignore him.” Loki mumbled dismissively, not even wanting to address Thor again. He gave Harry another pat on the back before thoughtfully adding: “If you still insist on joining the mission—no, do not expect that you’ll actually come with us—but there might be some parts in which you can aid us.”

Harry’s eyes lit up.

***

“Bye Papa! I love you, and be safe please.” Harry said, reaching up to hug Loki. Being able to help with something felt great—at least it made him less anxious. It didn’t make him less worried though; it’s a Code-Red after all, and anything involving stealing a spaceship from Grandpa Odin’s vault sound like a bad idea.

“I’ll keep him safe.” Thor promised.

“I’ll keep _myself_ safe.” Loki rolled his eyes at Thor, then gave Harry a tight hug, “Stay with your dad, will you? I’ll be back before you know.” When Harry nodded, Loki turned to Tom, “Tom, make sure your brother doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“Hey!” Harry protested.

“I will, Papa.” Tom nodded solemnly, “I’ll make sure Dad doesn’t eat too many donut too.”

Loki let out a quiet laughter: “You’ve got it.”

“Prince Harold.” Heimdall’s voice rang through the Bi-Frost, “It is time.”

Harry slipped out of Loki’s embrace and skidded towards the Gate Keeper, waving goodbye at his father: “I know I’m repeating myself, but be safe! And come back for my trip to Diagonal Alley, will you? I hope that mission doesn’t take you too long.”

“Surely.”

Then, with a bright flash of rainbow coloured light, Harry and Tom were gone.

Silence. Then—

“Ur, brother, what about this pygmy?” Frowning, Thor asked, raising his hammer up. There Dreki was, still clinging onto the silver Mjolnir.

“It’s Harold’s way of protesting” Loki chuckled. “Do keep _her_ safe.”

Thor had to work really hard to suppress a groan this time.

***

“Dad! Papa and Uncle Thor are going out on a Code-Red mission.”

“Yea kiddo it’s good to see you too—wait, Code-Red?! Your Papa’s going on a Code-Red mission, and he _didn’t tell me_? Are you sure?”

“That’s what Papa said. It’s something about retrieving a thing called Aether from the dark elves—they’re taking Aunt Jane too. I wanted to go but Papa wouldn’t let me...it’s sort of unfair, you know, if Aunt Jane’s allowed to go.”

“What in the name of f…how...right. Alright. I really need to talk to your Papa next time. Just so you know, though, I would agree that it’s a bad idea to take you on a Code-Red. Actually, bad idea to take Jane too since she's obviously a non-combat researcher. How’s she on Asgard anyways? I saw her in London literally—three days ago.”

“London? Does that mean Aunt Darcy’s there too? Can I go there—wait, I need to go there for the Diagonal Alley trip anyways. Can I go early to visit Aunt Darcy?”

“Your choice, buddy, but you will have to take someone with you. Tom doesn’t count.”

“Deal! I’ll ask if Uncle Stephen has time. Oh, and, I left Dreki with Papa. At least she can help.”

“You did _what_?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting out with plot from ThorTTW and IM3 this time~Sadly Harry’s still mostly participating as an observant from the sideline. I feel really bad for wanting a 12 years old to join the epic Avengers battles, but then I’m also not patient enough to wait until fifth year (fifteen should be enough, I mean, look at Spidey) to let Harry join either... :? Let me know your thought on this?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen.

As per usual, Harry got a ton of presents for his birthday. Everyone on the team seemed unusually busy this time around the year—take Uncle Clint for example. Clint was called in for a SHIELD mission literally the minute the party ended (and yes, guess what, SHIELD didn’t stay dissembled long either, the only difference being Director Fury wasn’t Director anymore.) It’s quite lucky that Tony decided to get rid of all the alcoholic drinks for the party, else it would’ve made a total disaster.

Tony ended up deciding to accompany Harry to London for a couple days trip himself, instead of asking Dr.Strange to look after his son. To be quite honest, Harry wasn’t expecting his Daddy to have the time to travel with him on a trip that lasts more than five hours. He was busy enough as the (supposed) head of Stark Industry, then adding the duty as Iron Man, his inert crazy inventor and identity as an enlisted SHIELD researcher, and other magic-government connections to the pot…Aunt Pepper was literally yelling in Dad’s ears for some pressing contract or meeting every time he’s in her eyesight. But Tony, clever as he was, somehow wiggled his way out of his regular schedule—again. When Dad sneaked into his room, took Harry by his hand, then sneaked up to the landing pad, put on their armours, _set the destination to London and just_ _started flying_ , Harry couldn’t stop _giggling_. Oh God, imagine what Aunt Pepper would say when _she_ found out.

The night’s “escape route” certainly lightened Harry’s heart a lot, especially from all the distressing things that happened on Asgard.

They reached London after a few hours of flight, early enough to watch the sunrise...and yep, Harry spent half the night strapped to Tony’s back, sleeping. This sounded like a recipe for nightmare and stiff neck, but then, of course, Tony prepared everything and specially designed his armour to suit the situation...let’s simply conclude that, falling asleep riding the Iron Man armour feels a lot better than most would expect.

Almost the second they landed in the London Office of Stark Industry, Tony’s phone got bombarded by Pepper’s urgent messages.

“Turn it off, J.” Tony made a face. When both Harry and Tom started giggling knowingly, Tony turned around and started talking with a straight face—except the glint in his eyes showed that he was clearly up to some misdeeds, “Kids, remember, we did not run away, and certainly not from New York or Pepper. We came to London for _serious_ business. JARVIS, tell Pepper that I’m on a SHIELD mission to deal with an experimental study on the centre of Convergence.”

“Are we going to be studying the Convergence centre?” Tom popped his head out beside Harry’s.

“I’ll send some drones there once we find the exact location, but we are _not_ going there in person.” Tony made a face, “Don’t you remember what your Papa said? Observing the portals may be interesting, but it is definitely not funny if we get sucked into one. If we get stuck on Svartalfheim or even Helheim, it’ll be very disastrous.”

“Sir,” JARVIS chimed in, making a sound that was eerily similar to a human sigh, “You do realize that Miss Potts will simply need to call Agent Coulson...then she’ll find out that this mission does not exist at all?”

“Yes, yes, then _Agent_ will have to worry about it, not _me_.”

“Sir...”

“Harry, Tom.” Tony totally just ignored JARVIS, “Let’s go find Darcy first.”

JARVIS let out another sigh before complying: “Leaving a message for Miss Potts.”

Darcy’s apartment, or rather, Dr. Selvig’s flat was in a rural area in London. After locating the scientist Tony scooped Harry up and shot straight up the sky, despite Harry’s complaint that he could fly by himself. Tony landed right in front of the flat and knocked.

As they waited, Harry could hear the sound of news on TV, and other people talking inside the door—who’s Darcy talking to? A young male whom Harry didn’t recognize opened the door. He was obviously planning to say something, maybe a greeting, then he saw Iron Man…understandably, he got completely stunned. Tony flipped up his mask and waved his hand to greet the man: “Hello? Looking for Darcy Lewis here.”

“Y-yes, right, okay, of course,” The man stammered, “D-D-Darcy. Ur. Darcy!” He squeaked with a voice at least an octave higher than usual male voices, “Darcy, the door’s for you!”

“Alright, alright, coming.” Darcy’s voice rang through the apartment. She rushed out, holding her phone, still complaining: “This is getting so frustrating—Jane isn’t calling me back, Erik isn’t calling me back, stupid SHIELD isn’t—oh Harry!” She threw her phone away the instant she saw Harry and bent down to hug him, “When did you get here? You should’ve called me! Hey Tony! Great to see you too—guys, come in, let’s not stand in the doorway.” She pointed at the man, “This is my Intern, Ian Boothby.”

“Sounds great, Mr. Boothby. I believe you know me—I mean us—already.” Tony held out a hand, “In case you don’t , I’m Tony Stark and this is my son Harry Star-Lokason.”

“Y-y-yes. I d-d-do, Mr. S-Stark.” Ian squeaked nervously, shaking Tony’s hand way so hard that he looked like he was shaking himself.

 _What is wrong with him??_ Tom asked in Harry’s head.

 _It’s called being nervous._ Harry told him.

Tom huffed out a laugh. _I’m gonna go explore around a bit._

_Just don’t get caught._

Tom didn’t reply, so Harry knew that he must have left. He slipped into the, as he would call it, “classically decorated” living room, watching Darcy running around the kitchen in a frenzy: “Hey Harry, wanna eat anything? I think we have chocolate cake here—WHO PUT THIS HAMBURGER IN THE FRIDGE??”

“I did.” Ian said timidly.

Darcy mumbled a “I knew it,” and resumed digging in the fridge.

Tony walked out of his armour, then directed the suit to stand neatly beside the coat rack before asking: “What with SHIELD?”

“Jane said I shouldn’t be telling this to anyone—” Darcy paused. Her eyes suddenly started glowing as she turned and clapped her hands together, “wait, _you_ , are my _boss_. _Our_ boss. Great, finally, at least I have someone to consult with now.” She quickly threw all her thought about food away, sat down on the old sofa and began: “Jane and I found a stable gravimetric anomaly in an old factory, which, as you know, is a thing we’ve been working on for the last few months, so we naturally wanted to investigate the source. It turned out sort of like Dr. Strange’s portal, except they had no colour or shape, and...Jane disappeared in one—at least that’s what I thought happened—for five hours before Thor came thundering down the sky. Now Jane has left with Thor and I have no fricking idea of what to do with the portals—and I can’t contact her, Erik, or even SHIELD. I mean, I know Jane really doesn’t want SHIELD controlling the area, but at least I trust Phil.” Darcy stressed, sounding exasperated, “Thank _God_ you’re here.”

“Sounds like I came just in time to save the day.” Tony whistled, “So she went through a portal and came back? Lucky her. That’s probably the centre of Convergence for Earth. Do you still have the device that recorded the anomaly?”

“And Aunt Jane is fine, on Asgard.” Harry chimed in, “Papa and Uncle Thor are taking her out on a mission.”

“So she’s on a sweet date—awesome. Just awesome.” Darcy mumbled...totally ignoring the fact that Loki was going with them, “Date. Yet I am here, _worrying_ about her. _Why_ am I worrying about her. I should go on a date too. Hey Intern, wanna go on a date?”

“My name really is Ian, not Intern.” Ian said weakly.

Both Darcy and Tony ignored him. Darcy was digging out Jane’s previous work and study on Convergence and handing them to Tony. Tony poked at the folder: “Are you sure Jane would be happy if I read them? You know how much she likes to stress that all this is ‘her work’, and last time we met we didn’t really get along either.”

The relationship between those two dated back all the way to before Thor’s coronation—it had never been that great really, as Jane never liked Tony’s flippant attitude towards both life and science, then it got worsened after the Chitauri invasion two years ago. Not a huge surprise that, even though Jane respected Tony’s work in various fields of science, and even though Selvig agreed to accept Stark Industry’s offer after the SHIELD-HYDRA debacle, those two still couldn’t get along.

“Jane’ll get over it.” Darcy waved a hand dismissively, adjusting her glasses, “It’s not like you’re suddenly trying to take credit for her work or something like that. I’m sure she’ll appreciate if you share your side of info on the Convergence too—you know, she can’t really go and ask Loki about it, and you can’t take Thor’s fantasy-like descriptions seriously when it comes to scientific researches. Just tell me what the heck is going on.”

Tony shrugged and picked up the files. “Alright then. J, get me a mini holographic lab ready.” He asked, and instantly his suit of armour walked up and started setting up projectors and simulators. “Lucky that I brought Mark XV here—he’s the only one with built-in equipment for all lab set-ups.”

Harry kneeled on the sofa, watching the exchange between the adults curiously. It’s quite amazing how his father could switch from “play-mode” to “work-mode” in less than a minute, but he guessed it comes with being a genius playboy for more than half his life. Knowing that Daddy would totally forget about daily routines if something manages to catch his attention, Harry took out his phone: “JARVIS, can you order breakfast somewhere please?”

“Of course, Master Harry.” JARVIS’ voice rang from his speaker, “I have ordered set of classic British breakfast for everyone—ETA eight minutes.”

 _Hey Harry._ Tom called out as he returned back to Harry. _You may want to see this._ He sounded very amused. _I can’t believe this is happening._

 _What?_ Harry turned to the direction Tom was signalling at. It was the TV, which happened to be playing morning news. The female reporter with a lovely voice was speaking: “...and Astrophysicist, Dr. Erik Selvig, notable for his involvement in the Alien invasion in New York streaked nude across Stonehenge...”

Harry literally choked on air. “Dad!” He coughed out.

“Yes darling?” Tony looked up from the hologram, as he always did when Harry called him.

Still coughing, Harry pointed at the TV. The reporter was, surprisingly, keeping a very straight face: “...disrobed and began shouting at visitors at the historic site...”

Darcy looked up as well. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the information, and her mouth hung open. “Oh Lord.” She groaned and face-palmed herself. “Just kill me. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Ian tried to suppress a laugh, but it ended up revealing and earning him a glare from Darcy’s direction.

“Pepper says those same words a lot these days.” Tony said thoughtfully, “...I’m not as crazy as his, though, am I?”

***

(Meanwhile on Asgard)

“That is not how it works.”

“No, it’s almost starting up—”

Loki rolled his eyes and tried to push Thor aside again, without success: “Trust me, brother, this is definitely not how you operate a spaceship. Stop hitting the buttons—press them gently!”

“I’m pressing every damn button on this thing.” Thor yelled as he smashed the control board, “Gently!”

Dreki squeaked. She popped down from Thor’s shoulder to the control board and started dancing on the buttons.

“Why in Valhalla did I even agree to your stupid plan. Really, this is you, and your woman, and none of my business _at all_.” Loki mumbled, then he reached out to turn a knob Thor missed on his previous tries, “There.” He paused as the ship whirled to life, and added, “For the sake of attracting even more attention, what about go ahead and try to hit all the columns in the palace?”

Thor laughed wholeheartedly; hearing him laugh, Dreki looked up and made a curious sound, before flapping her little wings and landing on Mjolnir again. Loki cocked his head and glanced at the woman—Jane Foster, if he remembered correctly—sitting in the back seat, the whole reason they even _were_ out here, disobeying Odin’s order. Then he turned back and pointed towards the destination they were supposed to be going at, which Thor, of course, missed by a million miles: “Let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...okay I admit I'm not good at writing stories from multiple perspectives...does anyone find this too sudden a turn of event?
> 
> Leave comments to tell me what you think please?


	4. Chapter 4

“Hello, I’m here to, well, ‘bail out’ Dr. Erik Selvig.”

The desk officer at the sanitarium stared at Tony in awe.

Darcy nudged Tony from behind: “Er, Tony, we don’t usually say  _‘bail out’_  when we’re trying to bail someone out.”

“Oh. Do we.” Tony raised an eyebrow, “Apparently things work differently when it comes to the Air Force and SHIELD. Let’s try again. This,” he pointed at Ian, “is Dr. Selvig’s kid, Ian Selvig, and he’s here to get his father.”

“I am not—” Ian began.

“Yes, you are.” Darcy hissed, “Go damn ahead and say yes.”

Ian swallowed and walked up. “Yes, hello, I am Ian Selvig, nice to meet you.” He said quickly, “Can I see my father now?”

“Sure.” The desk officer said distractedly, eyes still staring in Tony and Harry’s direction with shock, “Just...let me get the paperwork.”

“We really should have come in disguise.” Darcy sighed, eyes tracing the officer’s path as he went to get Selvig’s belongings, “Now the whole world will think that the crazy professor Erik is related to Iron Man.”

“Hmm, I’ve gotten used to being called crazy, you know, especially after marrying Lokes.” Tony hummed.

As the adults talked and dealt with “official” stuff, Harry was looking out the glass door, frowning. Something felt wrong—no, rather, something was  _happening_. It’s like an itchy, tickling feeling that was trapped inside Harry’s body, pulling him in every direction. It almost felt as if something was summoning his presence...A flock of birds flew across the glass panels and disappeared in the sky. Harry stared out the window, and a moment later the birds reappeared in another direction. Something was  _definitely_  happening.

 _I should check outside_. Tom said. Harry could feel that his brother was getting as agitated as he was, because of the unknown presence, but he decided that it’s not a good idea to leave;  _don’t! I think we should stick together, at least right now_.

 _I—Okay._  Tom mumbled.

“Erik! It’s me, Darcy!” Darcy’s voice broke Harry out of his trance. He looked over to see Dr. Selvig giving Darcy a hug, a strange and lunatic smile pasted on his face. “It’s so good to see you.” The old professor pronounced loudly, “So good.”

“Uh, thanks, I miss you too.” Darcy said. She looked awkward, as Dr. Selvig continued to hold her tightly, “Uh, Erik, time to go. This is getting weird now.” She breathed, “I don’t get paid enough for this. I don’t get paid  _period_.  _Why_  am I here.  _Who_  am I. God let’s get out of here.”

“Hey, pretty sure  _I_  pay you.” Tony half-turned and said, studying Dr. Selvig’s gadget curiously. The gadget beeped noisily as he held it towards the outside.

“Not for  _this_ , buddy, you don’t pay me for this.” Darcy moaned, pointing at Dr. Selvig, who was covering her like a mat of some sort, “Intern, you got everything? Let’s get going.”

“My name is  _Ian_.” Ian said, for probably the fifth time today, and looked at Dr. Selvig uncertainly, holding out his belongings, “Ur, hello, doctor, Erik, I’m Darcy’s Intern by the way. It’s, it’s great to finally meet you?” He paused as Erik finally straightened up and started pouring pills into his mouth, “Are…are you alright?”

“I have had a god in my head. I don’t recommend it.” Dr. Selvig muttered, clearly referring to Loki.

“You know how awesome it gets when he does the same trick in bed though? Don’t suppose  _you’ve_  got the chance to try anyways.” Tony let out a breath of laughter and threw the gadget at Dr. Selvig, “Hey Professor-Shoes, catch your gear! It works better than I was expecting—but of course if I had made it, it would’ve been even better. Speaking of which, why didn’t you send me a report when you made progress on your work? The entire  _reason_  I hired you guys was to get you out of your  _making-scientific-instruments-out-of-paper-clips_  situation.”

Darcy explained: “Jane said we should send it in only after we’ve had a complete study on the field. We’ve got a thing going too—what’s it called again? Right, The Foster Theory.”

Tony looked amused. “Foster Theory?  _Foster_? Wow, that’s some crazy amount of personality showing right there. I  _really_  should check in more often with you guys.”

“Go go go go go.” Darcy ushered, “Let’s go home.”

As the group walked out of the building, a couple of men clasped in black leather jackets walked pass them into the sanitarium. Harry halted his steps. Was he dreaming...or did that guy’s eyes actually turn orange for a second?

 _Let me tell you._  Tom teased.  _You are dreaming. Let’s move on._

 _Wait, but I really think something’s not right_. Harry was still turning his head and looking back. He saw one of the men walking up to the front desk, while the others spread out around, as if standing guard. Was that his brain again, or did the skin of that guy talking to the front desk attendant flicker golden-orange again?

 _The Convergence is really affecting you._  Tom said.  _I won’t blame you though, since I’m not feeling that well either._

“Harry, come on.” Tony called from in front.

Harry threw away his doubts.  _Maybe it is the Convergence_, he thought. Then he started running to catch up with the rest of the group.

***

(Meanwhile on Svartalfheim)

“Loki!!”

Thor’s voice was swallowed by a blinding burst of light. He dashed towards his brother the moment his sights were restored: “No no no—tell me you’re okay!”

“I’m fine, but I will not be very soon if you continue sitting on top of me!” Loki hissed, pushing Thor aside. He reached out to touch his own chest, before frowning and replying: “The blade didn’t get to me.”

“What do you mean it didn’t get to you, I saw it pierce—” Thor looked around in confusion, “Where  _is_  Algrim?”

Loki sat up and looked around as well. There was no sign of the large, Kursed soldier in sight. Did he escape with Malekith too?

“Thor! Over here!” Jane yelled, “Your hammer—”

Thor quickly rushed over and summoned his hammer. “What is your concern?” He asked. Together he and Loki studied the hammer, until suddenly a face appeared on the silver surface—wait, is thAT ALGRIM WHAT THE HELL.

Thor was so shocked that he almost dropped his hammer. He turned Mjolnir around, and the face moved with it—it’s as if Mjolnir had turned into a large crystal, and inside was Algrim’s frozen specimen. Thor shook his hammer around a bit, and saw the body of the Dark Elf shaking around inside. 

“I didn’t know Mjolnir could do that.” Jane commented, holding her dress in her hand.

“Neither did I.” Thor said, “Brother, did you do that?” 

“Stop thinking I was the one who did everything.” Loki said mockingly, hand still pressed on top of the non-existent wound.

Thor stood in silence and stared at the hammer, completely dumbfounded, until right before his eyes the silver surface of Mjolnir started rippling. A lizard head suddenly popped up, looking disoriented at first. It turned around, saw Thor, and squeaked in his direction, as if, again, proclaiming that the Mjolnir is  _hers_. Not  _his_.

Dead silence.

Then, under the background of the dark, sandy land of Svartalfheim, Loki started laughing out of the blue. It was as if his laughter triggered some Start/Pause key, and Thor began roaring at the dragon—

“GET DOWN HERE DREKI AND WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HAMMER FOR THE LOVE OF—”

***

“I wish Jane could get back soon.” Darcy said listlessly, “This whole world is going crazy.”

“The world’s not going crazy,” Ian disagreed, “It’s the Convergence.”

“Which I just termed ‘crazy.’” Darcy said. She flipped through the paper she was handed, and asked curiously: “Do you even know  _what_  a Convergence is?”

“No.” Ian admitted.

Darcy hit the table with her head and complained: “Jane. I need Jane. Why is Jane gone? Jesus, she can’t just do that to us—”

“Isn’t it enough that I’m here to help?” Tony teased.

The same time Darcy muttered a “yes genius,” Harry yawned, holding the StarkPad Tony handed him, which stored a ton of important data from Tony’s simulations: “What are we going to do with the Convergence anyways? Send in a drone?”

 _My eyes are getting really tired._  Tom muttered. _And so far I still can’t see what Dad is trying to do._

 _I think he’s trying to design an algorithm to simulate the natural flow of the energy brought by the Convergence._ Harry replied, a bit unsure.  _It sort of look related to the thing he was building for the Ministry of Magic a few weeks back. Wait, it could also be for extracting the energy…?_

“Why, of course we’ll need to visit in person.” Selvig waved his shoe around—no wonder Tony called him Professor-Shoes—and said eagerly, “Don’t you understand? This is our best chance to study the effect of this occurrence. All our work is paying off now—and with the new set of data we can pursue this further down the road!”

Hearing Selvig’s claim, Harry quickly looked up. “That’s a really bad idea.” He said quietly, remembering his parents’ warning, “You might get sucked into one.”

“That’s exactly the fun part! What is more valuable in science than to experience it yourself?!” Selvig exclaimed. “All I need now is to find the exact place and the exact time of the Convergence...it’s happened before, on Earth, and was recorded in several pre-historic records, so I only need a couple of deductions to calculate where it will be this time—"

“Wait, that’s all you’re looking for?” Tony raised his head, “Why didn’t you say that earlier—I thought you were trying to harness the power of the anomalies to use. That’s what I have been looking at for the past two hours! That’s a huge waste of time and  _do you know how much each minute I work is worth?_ ” Seeing how confused Selvig looked at his accusation, Tony shook his head and started speaking again, “Never mind that. JARVIS, bring me up the map of England.” He said. As another blue hologram flickered to life, showing the geography of Great Britain, Tony pin-pointed a spot on the display: “There. We have exactly ninety two minutes and five seconds before all of the nine worlds line up.”

For a second no one in the room spoke. Selvig pouted, obviously not pleased that someone else was able to solve the equation he had been working on for months in seconds.

“Great. Let’s go wait out there then.” Darcy jumped out of her seat, breaking the silence, “Intern, let’s go.”

“It’s  _Ian_.” Ian muttered, following Darcy up.

“Hey, wait, you’re really just planning to leave now?” Tony asked incredulously, “Guys, there’s an hour and a half left, no need to rush—at all. And don’t you want to prepare more before you go?”

“Yes Genius, come on.” Darcy pulled the door open and headed straight out, just in time to crash into the person outside, “Ouch. Who—Jane!  _Oh my God_  it’s Jane!! You’re back! You can’t just leave like that you know—”

“Hey.” Jane said, sounding tired. Harry looked from behind Tony, and saw her wearing a long, light blue dress that was obviously in Asgardian fashion. She scanned the room and noticed Tony and Harry for the first time, and she halted: “Mr. Stark?! Why are you here?!”

“What, I’m not allowed to visit?” Tony shrugged as Jane started squishing through the crowd, walking inside the apartment, “Finished your mission? Great. How does Code-Red feel like? Fun? What about—”

“Papa!” Harry shrieked, jumping into the embrace of the person standing behind Jane. Somewhere in the back, Dr. Selvig saw the exchange by the door and let out a horrid cry as he saw Loki and straight-out fainted. Jane shrieked, and Ian was rushing around trying to find Dr. Selvig’s emergency pills. Everyone was trying to do something at once but nothing was getting done—things just got turned into a huger chunk of mess.

Watching the scene in front of her, Darcy face-palmed herself again. “This is hopeless.” She muttered, “Hopeless, guys. Do you know how to spell ‘hopeless’? It’s H-O-P-...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to my new, awesome beta DisneysSlytherinPrincess! Let me know what you think? I should be posting the next chapter in approx. two days


	5. Chapter 5

Tony couldn’t stop laughing as he watched Ian trying his best to sort things out between Selvig, Jane, and Loki after things had settled enough for everyone to at least sit down. “Look at this, Snowflake.” He called, “Simply your  _presence_  causes trouble. No wonder you’re the God of Chaos. 

“Then you should be the personification of Chaos himself.” Loki chuckled. Harry sat on his lap, holding his hand tightly. Thor’s hammer was sitting right beside them as well, with a very excited Dreki tightly attached. “Yes, Harold, there is no need to worry—I will not be leaving for another mission soon.”

“Don’t imagine that we’re over the Code-Red thing already.” Tony warned, “You should’ve at least  _told_  us, even if it’s a normal quest. A Code-Red? One helper is not enough—and you definitely don’t take  _Thor_  on a Code-Red mission  _with no one else_.”

Loki held up his hands placatingly. “It was safe.” He said, “I had everything calculated.  _Perfectly_  safe.”

Somewhere in the room, Thor snorted loudly as Loki spoke. 

“Malekith plans to fire the Aether at a spot when and where all nine worlds are connected.” On the other side of the table, Jane was talking serious stuff. She had decided to simply ignore the little family reunion, and so far it was working well, “As each world amplifies the power of the weapon...”

“The end effect will be universal.” Selvig concluded.

“A world-destroyer. I’ve heard this somewhere. New Mexico, anyone?” Darcy mumbled, “This sounds  _just_  like the research trip I was looking for.”

“How can we stop him?” Ian asked a little bit timidly, “I mean, there has to be a way to stop the evil villain who wants to take over the world—or destroy it…right?”

“In order for his weapon to have climactic effects, Malekith has to appear at the exact right time in the exact right place.” Jane explained. “If we find him, we can stop him.”

At that, all three of Darcy, Ian and Selvig turned to stare at Tony. Confused by the sudden turn of event, Jane turned around too: “What? What are you looking at?" 

“We were just about to leave for the centre of the Convergence before you arrived.” Ian explained, and Darcy added: “Right, Tony, how long do we still have left?”

Tony checked with JARVIS: “About seventy minutes. The pin-pointed location is at a library in Greenwich—takes quite a while to get to by car, but it takes only five seconds by teleportation.”

“How do you know?” Jane asked suspiciously.

“It’s called  _scientific induction and calculation_ , my dear.”

Jane looked like she wanted to say something else, but Thor cut her words by summoning Mjolnir—and Dreki: “Let us depart, my friends, we don’t have time to waste.”

“Awesome.” Tony clapped his hands together, “Okay then, who wants to go with us here? Thor is another choice but I doubt it would feel good ‘ _riding_ ’ his hammer. By hammer I meant Mjolnir. No pun intended, Jane.”

Jane’s face turned red. “STARK!” She shrieked.

“Yes yea.” Tony waved his hand around dismissively, picking up one of Selvig’s spear-like devices, “How about we get going?”

Selvig stood up. “I better get my pants.” He mumbled, quickly running out of the room.

***

“So, it’s here, right? Okay, where do we start?” Darcy breathed out as the crowd stood in the little garden in the library. Admittedly, this was a beautiful, classically styled building, and from outside the window they could clearly see the River Thames.

They had divided themselves up into three groups. Thor and Tony went outside around the building, patrolling, keeping an eye out just in case Malekith transports here before the other groups get ready. Loki stayed with Selvig and Jane in the library's clock tower; with the view of the highpoint and the devices Darcy’s group was setting up, it would be easy for them to control the bigger picture. Supposedly, once the gadgets were set up they would be able to manipulate the gravitational fields around the centre of the Convergence, helping the upcoming fight and buying them more time. 

Harry carefully set down another gadget on the ground, aligning it with the other ones Darcy had set up before hammering it in. Tom had left to patrol with Tony, and Dreki was sitting on Harry’s shoulder, looking extremely bored. 

Although it was a task as simple as putting down the gadgets in the right place, Harry was excited.  _Thrilled_. At least he’s doing  _something_ —unlike before, when the Chitauri invasion happened, or even when Dad was summoned to some government missions. Those times he wasn’t even allowed to be present…if he can’t fight, at least he could help his team set the scene up. 

_Four down, three more to go._ Harry thought and ran to the next location. As he placed down the fifth gadget, the library ground suddenly started shaking violently. He looked up from the ground, wide-eyed, and saw a giant ship sliding from the middle of the river towards them. 

“Holy  _shit_!” Darcy screamed and fell to the ground. Ian pulled her up, and together they jumped up to run away from a flock of dark elves coming out of the giant ship. 

Harry decided not to waste his breath on cursing, and quickly rushed to where the next gadgets should be placed. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Darcy frantically pulling out her phone, Ian on her side smashing down another gadget. He put down the last device and rushed to Darcy’s side: “Done!”

Darcy gave him a thumbs up—at the same time, she was on her phone with Jane, yelling about something. Harry looked out the window and saw both Thor and Tony fighting with—distracting—Malekith, with Tony assaulting from the sky and Thor holding the dark elf on the ground. Harry couldn’t help feeling worried as he saw Malekith releasing the dark power of the Aether, over and over again…for the simplest part, he remembered that Tony’s Mark XV was mostly not designed for combat. It was a “helper” bot after all, with all the built-in lab-setup functions. And Thor—well, Harry felt an urge to cringe every time he saw the god getting smashed into the building, and it had happened a couple of times by now. The Aether—it was  _strong_. Harry thought of teleporting over to maybe help distract Malekith, before remembering that when they “escaped” from New York, he brought literally nothing with him. Which means no phones, no communication devices except the also non-combative suit he was wearing, and definitely no sling-rings. He silently cursed, turning again to watch Ian put down the last device.

Ian signaled to Darcy. The latter very quickly picked up her phone: “...Jane, Jane, hear me? We’re finished here, do your magic!” 

A muffled response came through the phone; at the same time, portals began to open up from above their heads, showing the rest of the nine realms. The Convergence is finally taking effect...it also meant that, they only needed to distract Malekith for a couple more minutes for his world-destroying plan to fail. A blue circle appeared on the ground, and multiple dark elves running around in that circle disappeared. One of them reappeared right next to Darcy, and Harry quickly knocked it aside with a blow of energy. He was getting more excited than he probably should, the level of adrenaline increasing dramatically as more and more of his surroundings were destroyed in various earth-shattering battles.  _God, please tell me I don’t actually have the tendency to destroy the world_ , Harry thought to himself. Then another thought popped into his head: would the Ministry of Magic consider it breaking the law if he uses magic here? Speaking of which, if all this is happening, right here, right in England, right under their noses, why are no wizards and witches showing up to join the battle??

But he didn’t have time to consider more of those questions now, especially as another dark elf holding a long sword rushed towards them. Green light bursted out in front of Harry— _Papa’s seidr!_ —but before Harry could react, the space around him contorted...and suddenly he was gone.

Wait. Wait,  _wait_ , what just happened?!

Harry looked around, disoriented, and a little bit scared because of the sudden movement.  _Probably the effect of the Convergence_ , he realized after a couple seconds. So he fell into a portal? Or was it…Aunt Jane?

Darcy and Ian were nowhere in sight—even Dreki was gone. Somehow they all got seperated…just looking at the scene around him Harry had no idea where he could be—half of England looked exactly the same in his eyes, after all. Most probably still in London though, he realized. At least he’s pretty sure that none of the other eight realms has this 1800s’ classical British style of building... 

“Ugh, where are we?” A voice suddenly said. Harry turned to see, to his surprise, a half-transparent Tom standing behind him, hand pressed to his forehead, “I was in the middle of getting into that damn spaceship— _what the hell just happened_?”

“I think I was pulled out by the portals, then the bond we have dragged you here.” Harry quickly concluded, “We need to—”

“Watch out!” Tom yelled. Harry instinctively reacted, closely missing the sword that swiped over where he stood a second ago. He turned to find a dark elf waving its sword around, roaring. “Jesus.” Harry murmured, but before he could shoot a burst of energy over, he heard a familiar voice calling out from the other side of the street: “Harry P—Harry?! How in Merlin’s name are you here— _Protego_!”

The elf was blown back by its own striking force as the shielding charm started to take effect.  Harry gave its head another blow of energy, making certain that the knock-back effect was permanent, then turned around. There he was, the pale, blond boy dressed in a fancy, delicate wizard robe. It’s quite wondrous how the boy matched the image still so fresh in Harry’s memory—did he grow taller already, in the span of less than two months?  _I should greet him_ , Harry thought, a little bit dizzy. _Or at least ask how the hell he’s here. _But what ended up coming out of Harry’s mouth turned into: “You...just used magic outside of Hogwarts.” 

“My father can cover up for me. It’s not like the ministry will believe that a second-year student is able to use  _Protego_  anyways.” Draco waved his hand dismissively, then nodded to Tom, “Hello Tom.” He stared at Harry in disbelief for another couple of seconds, before reaching out and pulling Harry forward with him: “What are these things?! How are these abominations—”

“Draco, what are you doing here?” Tom asked, floating beside the duo, “Pretty sure Malfoy Manor isn’t here—isn’t even  _remotely_  close to this place.”

“My father’s coming to visit one of his business partners—you can’t see the house because there’s a Fidelius charm protecting it.” Draco explained briefly, before starting to fire questions at Harry, “What are these things? What in Merlin’s name happened?”

“These are dark elves, an old enemy of Asgard. To sum it up, their leader wants to destroy the worlds.” Harry answered. He had calmed down from the initial shock, and the questions he previously set aside popped into his mind again: “Did you guys—wizards—not even realize this? The Convergence is turning all the scientific laws ballistic. How do wizards not even see all these world-destroying disasters that literally happen under their noses?!”

“I don’t know. This is my first time too.” Draco replied, eyes widening when another dark elf was teleported out of nowhere. “Damn, did you just say these ugly beings are elves too?!” 

“Dark Elves. They’re an entirely different race from light elves.” Harry said as he dodged an attack, “Speaking of which, do you know how to get to Greenwich from here?” As he spoke, he shot out a surge of energy that hit the dark elf in the face. The monster groaned and attacked again, this time blocked by a blue light fired from Draco’s wand.

“Greenwich?” Draco asked curiously, panting. 

“Yea, that’s where—”

“Harry, just raise your head.” Tom called out. Harry fired a last shot at the soldier, looked up and saw his brother flying high up in the sky. “It’s quite obvious from up here.”

Harry did what he was told—and it was obvious where he needed to go from up in the sky. Well  _look_  at that huge spaceship. It  _would_  be quite hard to miss a thing like  _that_.

_Great. Now I just need to get there_ , Harry thought, giving the dark elf soldier one last blow. Which means... “Well Draco, what about you go back to wherever your family is visiting...”

Draco just stared at Harry.

“Right. I didn’t think you would want to either.” Harry considered his options, “What about your father? Wouldn’t he be mad if you...?”

Draco hesitated for a moment: “It’ll be fine. He told me to go explore around the house for the duration of their discussion anyways—Merlin knows why he even brought me here if he doesn’t want me listening in on their meeting.”

“O-Kay—what about…” Harry didn’t get to finish his words. Right before his eyes, dark, blood-red energy started shooting up from Malekith’s ship—shooting up the sky, around and into the bubbles that showed the other worlds. They were almost lining up, Harry saw, then he realized what exactly was going on.

“This is bad.” Harry muttered, then cursed and started up his thrusters as fast as he possibly could, “Shit, this is really bad. Draco, hold on tight, we’re running out of time here—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should've posted this earlier, except I somehow broke the internet access in the hotel and couldn't get online for the past two-ish days. BTW the Hogwarts light show is AWESOME, and I love the taste of butterbeer. Managed to get a robe from each house except Hufflepuff, plus Hermione's wand and other cool stuff! Sorta sad I didn't get anyone famous from the chocolate frogs I bought though...
> 
> Again, big thank you to my beta disneysslytherinprincess!


	6. Chapter 6

Harry reached the library at almost the same time Thor did—which really said something about what had happened in the battle between the god and the elf. The whole crew had been reunited, all gathering around the library door. Harry searched the crowd nervously for his Dad, and let out a breath when he saw Tony standing by a pillar, talking to Selvig, looking healthy despite his suit being torn and shattered. Dreki appeared out of nowhere and landed on Harry’s shoulder, squeaking some unknown words.

“Good girl.” Harry muttered and stroke her scales, “Now stay right where you are, and don’t move.”

By now, the library had been almost completely destroyed, covered in and corroded by the dark energy released from the Aether—Harry felt sincerely sorry for the destruction of yet another beautiful building...due to super-human powers. Harry rushed forward, just in time to catch the adults’ discussions.

“…with the effect of the Convergence, walking the branches of Yggdrasil is impossible.” Loki was explaining, “Your teleportation devices are the only stable and usable machines we have—and the best chance we have against Malekith.”

“Teleportation…if only Strange is here.” Tony muttered, “Didn’t he say his job was to protect Earth from invasion of other realms and dimensions? Where the f is  _he_ , Sorcerer Supreme, when we need him the most?!”

“Well, it’s not going to work from all the way out here.” Jane said worriedly, adjusting the device, “We can’t get close enough with all that storm.”

“I can.” Thor said, reaching out to grab the devices from Selvig. Loki took a step up: “I’ll go with you.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Thor snapped—it’s a rare occurrence, really, because Thor just _doesn’t snap,_ “Risking your life once on Svartalfheim is enough, brother. This, is my duty as the protector of the Nine Realms.”

“Why don’t you both shut up.” Tony squeezed in between them, “My Iron Legion will be arriving in two minutes. What about let’s wait for  _them_  to head inside that dark, scary ball of shades.”

“We do not have two minutes to spare.” Thor said simply, then, having made his decision final, he headed into the storm of energy. Harry watched Thor’s receding figure and felt like he couldn’t breath.

 _This is getting really uncomfortable,_  Tom whispered.  _That energy—it’s destructive._

Almost the minute Thor disappeared into the storm, dots of flying stars—or headlights—appeared on the horizon. Harry looked up to see half a dozen of suits appear directly on top of the group. 

Tony cursed for their tardy appearance, before quickly giving orders: “Do you guys still have more gadgets? Alright, J, get the army inside, help Thor however suitable—no, I don’t need one, Mark XV can still hold us up for a moment. I don’t care about damage taken either; just do whatever is necessary.”

“As you wish, sir.” One of the suits nodded to Tony, before flying off with the rest. Harry looked into the storm. He couldn’t see anything, but that only made him more nervous, more worried.  _How is Uncle Thor doing in there?_  He thought. _How is he going to destroy the elf anyways—the Aether is indestructible._

“You muggles,” Draco commented from the side—Harry almost forgot that he was still there, “are  _really_  crazy, I say.”

“You haven’t seen the craziest yet.” Harry replied distractedly, “And by the way, Uncle Thor isn’t human. I thought you know already.”

As they were talking, suddenly a sparkly orange portal began appearing beside them as well. “What—” Tony exclaimed as the portal opened and revealed—yes, Dr. Strange himself. “What the hell—do you know what  _time_  this is?!”

“It’s the traffic.” Strange said gloomily, while his cape—no,  _cloak_ —waved its corner at the crowd. “Someone mind bringing me up up to speed about...this?” He signalled at the storm in front of him.

“You’re like the policemen that always show up after the heroes finish their adventure.” Darcy commented and pointed to the blood-red energy storm, “Thor’s in there, trying to kill Malekith. Any suggestion on how to do that?”

Strange turned to look at the storm, then slowly raised an eyebrow. “Thor. Okay, Thor. I appreciate his courage and effort—really, I do. But did you just say hE’S IN  _THERE_?! IS HE STUPID O—”

“You are  _not_  helping.” Loki cut his words.

“I will be. Let me just—” Strange said as he opened another orange, sparkly portal. This time, however, before the portal could even grow to the size of a watermelon, a black, spherical object suddenly shot out of the portal. The ball-shaped thing hit Strange square in the face, knocking the sorcerer over, before zooming off and disappearing in the storm of energy.

An awkward silence spread among the group. “Thank you. That was very helpful.” Darcy said drily.

“Was that a Bludger?” Draco whispered beside Harry, “I swear to Merlin that was a Bludger. How did a  _Bludger_  end up  _here_?!”

Harry thought about the Bludger that he accidentally sent to Svartalfheim a couple months ago and decided not to say anything.

Strange got up from the ground, looking embarrassed. He quickly opened another portal and stepped into it, closing the sparkly ring behind him. All Harry could see from the other side of the portal was the smoky red spiral of energy storm—Uncle Strange must had gone into the centre to fight Malekith as well. 

Now…all they could do was wait.

“JARVIS, how’s the situation inside?” Tony asked, keeping a low voice. He appeared as nervous and agitated and Harry was, and several times the boy saw him flipping the panels covering the thrusters, as if he was itching to fly inside and fight himself.

“I have lost control over Mark X, Mark XVIII, Mark XXI, and Mark XXII.” JARVIS reported, “The suicide protocols were automatically set off when suit damage reach 80%. Mark XXX and XXXV are still operating, with 55% and 64% of the suit damaged respectively.”

“Okay, okay.” Tony let out a breath and murmured. Loki placed a hand on his shoulder as a comfort, eyes still searching through the mist.

To be precise, it actually didn’t take long for the storm to finally dissipate—but it felt like literally forever. Harry heard a couple of nervous gasps as the burst of energy suddenly swirled out of control—before it disappeared. Jane screamed: “Thor!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got your girlfriend.” Strange appeared a second later out of his portal, Thor floating unconsciously beside him, “Oops, I meant boyfriend. My apologies.”

Jane ignored him and rushed directly to Thor’s side. Harry—and the whole group—followed her and gathered around Thor. Loki reached out and hovered his hand over Thor’s forehead for a second, then nodded to Jane: “He is fine. This is just the shock of taking on the Aether’s energy. He will wake up in a moment.”

“Thank god.” Jane said and sat down on the ground, losing all her energy as a wave of relief swept over her.

“Hey Point Break, time to wake up.” Tony poked Thor’s face. Thor’s eyelashes fluttered under his force. “Come on, almost there, Sleeping Beauty. Do you need a kiss? Hey Foster, I mean  _Jane_ , what about a—”

Draco sucked in a breath, then glanced at Tony as if he couldn’t believe how this guy survived  _all those years_ , saying things like  _that_. Harry and Tom...well, they were so used to what their parents are like that they were not at all surprised, even when Thor’s stormy blue eyes suddenly snapped open. At once, the God of Thunder sat up and pushed Tony’s hand aside: “Friend Stark, there is no need. I am not a  _speck_  like the character you described.”

“Are you denying that you’re ‘beautiful’? Because you  _were_  sleeping...aww, you are? Jane would disagree—right, Jane? Wouldn’t you?”

Jane’s face flushed red. “Shut up, Stark, just  _shut up_.”

“Alright, so we’ve reached a happy ending.” Strange clapped his hands together, “Let’s each go wherever we should go, and deal with the collateral damage—”

“What about this?” Selvig interrupted, pointing above towards Malekith’s ship, which was still looming over the group. As he pointed, a piece fell off the ship, then another... “It-it’s falling apart!” He yelled, jumping out of his shoes.

People started moving all simultaneously. Thor spun and threw Mjolnir towards the fallen piece; Dr. Strange raise his hand to make yet another portal; Tony raised his hand to fire…then snap. A wave of blue swiped over the remains of the ship; the entire ship just disappeared.

At the same time, Mjolnir hit its falling target right in the centre, and the broken pieces fell down into the orange portal Strange opened right above the group’s head. Dust rain down on each and everyone standing in the library garden.

“Where did it go?” Darcy looked around and asked as the dust-storm settled, looking puzzled .

“Ur.” A sound came from all behind them. Harry turned around and saw Ian holding the device Jane used to control portals. Realizing what had happened, Darcy let out a shriek and threw herself onto Ian, and right in front of the crowd the two of them started kissing.

 _Awww_! Tom made a sound in Harry’s head.

“Alright guys, show’s really, finally over.” Tony called out. As he walked around he politely waved at the people around—Harry just noticed that they had actually gathered an audience! Students who were previously studying in the museum, people who heard and saw the big red storm going up from here…alright. It’s not like Harry didn’t know what the “breaking news” would be tomorrow—actually,  _today_ —anyways…

“Doctor, needing a little help here.” Again it was Tony who spoke, ushering Jane’s group around, “Send them back to their flat, will you? Thor’s in their group.”

“Wait, Stark—” Jane’s word didn’t finish. Orange, sparkly circles appeared under each of their feet, then, with a shriek, the—as Loki would describe it—normal, mundane, human group were swallowed up by the portals. Strange turned to Thor: “Wanna go by yourself or do you want a fast-pass too?”

Thor stared at Strange for an entire second before shaking his head and starting to spin his Mjolnir, a classical act of his before he would take off flying to his destination, “I do not require your help, Friend Strange.”

“It’s Doctor Strange.  _Doctor_.”

As Thor was spinning Mjolnir around faster and faster, a darkly colored object appeared and flew out from the hammer. Thor’s motion slowed. He stared at the thing incredulously: “Algrim?”

Dreki flapped her wings and gave a disappointed growl.

Strange didn’t want to deal with those bullshit anymore. “Fast-pass it is. Off you go.” He said as a portal scooped down from the sky, ate Thor up before he had a chance to speak, and closed up beneath Thor’s feet. “Done. Now you guys...”

“You must be having a really bad day.” Loki commented.

“It’s been long.” Strange hummed, “First there’s this group of talking trees, raccoons and lunatics messing with—fighting for—the power stone, then this. Can you imagine that?! Two damned infinity stones in  _one day_.”

“Power...power stone?” Loki’s eyes went wide, “Where is it now?”

“With the Collector. He’s got some strong fire power going on in his base; if he can’t protect that stone, we can’t either. Well, as long as he doesn’t decide to sell it.” Strange said, massaging his temple, “Come on, let’s deal with this as quickly as possible—I haven’t slept for two days.”

“Only two?” Tony cocked his head.

“Yes genius.” Strange said, “I’m getting old, alright? Satisfied?”

“Fine. I’ll deal with the government.” Tony finally agreed, looking around again, “I’ll get Stark Industry to help with the cleanup too.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Since we are in England already...” Loki began, the same time Tony yelled, noticing Draco for the first time, “Hey—what are you doing here? When—how long have you been here?!”

“I was here...” Draco began, then Tom popped up and finished his words: “Right when Thor got out of the subway.”

Tony pressed a hand to his forehead: “Subway—yea. That’s cool.  _Completely_  cool. I almost forgot that we’re in  _England_ —tiny place, small world...eh. Stay here, don’t move, don’t worry, I’ll call your dad in one sec.”

“Need me to take him on a ride?” Strange offered, studying the blond boy in a way that made Harry’s hair stand. 

“I have a better plan.” Loki interrupted before Strange could do anything irreparable, “As I was saying before, since we are in the Great Britain already, why don’t we go get Harry’s school supplies now?” 

“Sounds great.” Tony nodded joyfully, changing his previous plan on a whim, “Sure then boy, you’re coming with us.”

“ _Us?_ _You_ are not going.” Loki pokes Tony on his side, “You, my dear, are going straight to the London Division of Stark Industry. You have quite a few urgent meetings to catch.”

“Oh come on Lokes, why are we talking about work here?” Tony’s shoulders slumped in a dramatic fashion, “No random chats about work—that should be a house rule.”

“Well, Pepper  _called_  me.” Loki said, smiling, “Her exact words went ‘if he’s in England anyways, he might as well do something useful and meaningful.’”

“Hey, you can’t say what I did here was not ‘useful and meaningful.’” Tony protested loudly. “I can still survive another few hours without work.”

“ _Anthony_.” Loki raised an eyebrow.

“Okay okay, I’ll be responsible.” Tony sighed, “JARVIS, send Mark XX over please, I’ll ride that babe today. You guys have a good day, eh? Don’t worry.” He pointed at Draco, “I will let your dad know where you are.”

“Thank you?” Draco said with an uncertain tone.

Loki reaches out to hold Harry’s hand. “Come, Harold. Mr. Draco Malfoy, it is a pleasure to meet you again—I apologize for, well, the unfortunate event you witnessed. Now, if you will, hold on to Harold tightly; I will transport you to the destination. Ready to go? ”


	7. Chapter 7

Diagonal Alley had always been a busy place, and it only got busier in the summer, when all of Hogwarts’ students came out to gather their supplies. Harry received the list of school supplies he needed in his second year from Professor McGonagall ages ago—now he finally got to shop for them in the wizarding world!

The trip to Gringotts was quick. It was still the same building, the same goblins, the same roller-coaster-carts—nothing changed…the only surprise for Harry came from finding out that  _Jesus fucking Christ how did Tony Stark get a vault in the wizardry bank_. It was even a bigger surprise when it turned out to be already filled with golden gallons. Harry supposed he shouldn’t be shocked, but he simply couldn’t help that genuine wave of awe as he learned yet another miracle his dad had made true.

“Your father—your Dad—is not a muggle, I tell you,” Draco mumbled as they walked out of the bank—Mr. Malfoy managed to send over an owl just in time to announce Draco’s plan-for-the-day and provide the goblins a proof of identity, “He is  _not_.” 

“Yea.” Harry agreed, “It’s been ten years and I still get surprised by him sometimes…hey!” He suddenly noticed someone and called out, “Hermione!”

The girl, dressed in a beautiful white shirt and pair of black dress pants, turned around and searched the people around her, looking confused. Harry squeezed through the crowd and tapped her shoulder: “Right here, buddy.”

“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, “God I didn’t see you at all—you’re back already? Why didn’t you text me?” She reached out to tickle the little dragon standing on Harry’s shoulder, “Hello Dreki, how’s your little flying key?”

Dreki made a cute, purring sound.

“Left my phone in New York,” Harry said as Loki and Draco caught up with him. “My Papa, and Draco, you’ve met them.” He said as he tapped Hermione’s shoulder twice more.

“What are you doing with that?” Hermione asked, “Hello Mr. Loki, it’s awesome to meet you again! I  _love_  your book on elves—they are  _wonderful_. And Draco Malfoy, of course, great to see you too.” She added politely.

Loki nodded at the girl; Draco, on the other hand, snorted at Hermione’s comment and crossed his arms.

“It’s the illusions.” Harry explained briefly, “Now you get to actually see them.” 

“You have to tell me how  _that_  works.” Hermione’s eyes lit up, “I didn’t know you could have—selective invisibility?” She considered the name for a moment, before turning around and waving at her parents: “Oh, and this is my mom an—”

“Hermione!”

A short boy with red hair and freckles ran towards them, a whole family of red-haired creatures following him out of Gringotts. Except, all of them totally ignored Harry and Draco, and went directly for Hermione: “Hey Mione, great to see you again—who are you talking to?”

“It’s Ha—I mean, no one.” Hermione glanced at Harry and his family, “How’s your summer?” 

“Great. You wouldn’t know what Fred and George found at home.” Ron grinned, “A flying car!”

“Yes, sweetie.” Mrs. Weasley walked over, holding a little red-headed girl’s hand: “Which, is  _not_  supposed to happen at all. If you—Fred I’m talking to you, and George—dare to touch that  _thing_ again—you will know what a mother’s wrath is like. Hello, my dear.” She hugged Hermione and gave a kiss on her cheek.

“I’m George,” Fred said.

 _I can swear he is not._  Tom whispered to Harry.

“Mrs. Weasley.” Hermione greeted, then waved at Mr. and Mrs. Granger again, “These are my parents…” She introduced.

“Oh!” Mr. Weasley’s eyes lit up, “So they are muggles? Mr. and Mrs. Granger! It’s my pleasure. We should go have a drink. Let’s go have a drink.”

The other boys in the Weasley family quickly scattered, each going their own way in the Diagonal Alley, while the only girl followed Mrs. Weasley tightly. As he watched the red-headed people leave, Harry felt like it was time to reveal himself. He sneaked around Ron, who was still talking to Hermione, and—

“Boo!”

“Holy—” Ron jumped and shook himself around like a hundred spiders just crawled on him, “Harry! Mate! Don’t scare me like that!”

“It’s not his fault you didn’t see us...standing right here.” Draco teased as Harry tapped Ron twice as well.

“What—where did  _you_  all come from?!” Ron’s eyes widened, “You couldn’t have been here for that long!”

Harry couldn’t help the wide smile spreading on his face.

“Let’s not stand in the walkway,” Hermione said as another group of wizards rushed up the marble staircase leading to the bank, leading the way. Ron quickly followed her, while Draco and Harry trailed behind with Loki.

Loki nudged Harry a little: “Go on with your friends.” He said, “I will meet you here in an hour.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Harry asked.

“Well...I do need to make sure your dad is staying on task.” Loki winked at Harry, “You know what he’s like.” He said, “I will take Dreki with me as well.“

Harry smiled and held out the little dragon now asleep on his shoulder. Hermione turned around and informed them: “Ron’s family will be going to  _Flourish and Blotts_  for books in an hour. We can meet there.”

“I will see you in the store then.” Loki bent down to kiss Harry’s cheek, before he straightened up and disappeared in a burst of green light, “I will drop your illusion now—do have fun.”

The three of them ran down the street, while Draco walked behind them...elegantly. Harry bought all of them ice-cream before being dragged into the  _Quality Quidditch Supplies_  shop by Ron. At the same time, Tom was attracted by the new Potion materials on display next door and slipped out. Now Quidditch was one rare topic that Ron and Draco could really relate on—they went on and on talking about some famous Quidditch player or another, then about different brands of brooms and robes. Harry and Hermione followed them around, unimpressed.

“I feel like this is a bad idea, putting those two together,” Hermione complained, checking through an  _Introduction to Quidditch_  on the display shelf. 

“ _Seekers of Hogwarts, from 1200 to 2010_.” Harry read out loud as he looked at another book, “Ooh, that’s some recent edition. Didn’t Ron say Charlie was a Seeker a few years back? He could be on here.”

“Yea.” Hermione wasn’t interested at all. 

“By the way, what’s with your clothes?” Harry asked, turning his head, “I mean, you look great in those, but you don’t usually dress up.”

“It’s a community centre orchestra thing.” Hermione waved her hand around and pulled on her white shirt, “My parents took me directly here after the performance. I had to put some weird special hair gel thing on my hair too—it’s getting really uncomfortable.” She said and looked around the shop. “Alright let’s get them out of here; we don’t have a whole day to waste,” Hermione said, putting the book down and walking towards Draco and Ron—who had gathered in front a window that was displaying the newest, fastest broom.

Harry put down the  _Seekers of Hogwarts_  as well, the page coincidentally flipped to Year 1993. They went to the supplies shop next, to get ink and parchment. As Harry picked out another quill he sighed: “Seriously, I’m going to use a pad to take notes this year. Parchments are so inconvenient—and such a waste of material.”

“Muggle electronics don’t usually work in Hogwarts,” Ron mumbled.

“Harry’s phone did.” Hermione said thoughtfully, “That’s a good point, actually. I can’t write as fast with quills.”

“Says the one who can finish a 15-inch long essay in half an hour.” Draco squeezed past them, holding a beautiful peacock-feather quill, “Come on. We still have time to check out the stuff in Knockturn Alley.”

“Knockturn Alley?” Ron sucked in a breath, “We were never allowed to go there.”

Draco puffed: “You guys on the light side.” He walked out, “Follow me if you dare then.”

“Hello!” Harry paused his steps. He turned around to see Fred and George jogging to catch up with them, each holding a bag of—most probably some mischief products—and grinning widely. 

“—Ooh look it’s our little Harry!”

“—Best mischief master!”

“—Did I hear  _Knockturn_  Alley?”

“—Woo, wonderful place! I’ve always wanted to go.”

“—But it’s dangerous.”

“—And evil!”

“—They say everything there is terribly cursed!”

“—And can kill on a blink!”

“Nonsense.” Draco crossed his arms and said, “Not all wizards in Knockturn Alley are dark wizards, and definitely not everything there has the purpose of killing. A lot of the materials we use in Potions class are only on sale there.”

“What about the cursed objects?” Hermione asked, curious, “I’ve heard that most of them  _are_  designed to kill whoever touches them. Like, in  _A Wizard’s Guide to Dark Magic_ , Sir Eiden said that—”

“Why would you be reading a book like that?” Ron interrupted, eyes wide.

“It’s called  _hobby_.” Hermione said, “And  _A Wizard’s Guide to Dark Magic_  is not a book for  _studying_  dark magic either, more like a book for DADA, so  _stop looking at me like that_.” She scolded, glaring from Fred to George then to Ron again.

Draco made a face. “Not if you handle them with care—haven’t killed me yet.” He said.

“You’re implying something,” Fred said thoughtfully.

“What  _exactly_  is in the Malfoy Manor?” George asked.

“I wonder why you all insist those are dark magic.” Harry wrinkled his nose, finally speaking up, “As far as I’ve learned, the only reason they’re forbidden is because they are really, really powerful. But there is white, or light magic that is equally as powerful...makes no sense.”

“You use dark magic to hurt others, duh,” Ron said.

“I can use regular magic to hurt others, and use dark magic to save people too.” Harry countered, “Only the intention of the  _user_  defines their function.”

“Well said,” Draco commented.

“That also is something of the wizarding world that confuses me.” Hermione agreed, “In the muggle world, even weapons that are powerful enough to kill off the entire planet aren’t defined as ‘dark.’ Everyone learns about it, everyone knows about it—even though, of course, not everyone can use them. It’s weird how even in DADA class we don’t get to see and learn about spells that are classified as dark magic as much. I mean, how do we defend against them when we don’t even know what they’re like?”

“Wooooow.” George made a sound, “Ms. Granger here certainly has some personality!”

“Er, are we actually going in there?” Ron asked, a bit worried as they finally approached the cross-section where Diagonal Alley And Knockturn Alley merged, “I mean, Mom’s gonna kill us. She is.”

“Come on.” Fred said joyfully, “What is the chance that we’ll get a guide the next time we want to go down here?”

“I would suggest not going down there—at all.” Ron mumbled, peeking down the windy, dingy street. 

It looked eerily quiet and dirty, reeking the word “evil” inside out. Harry’s interest perked up. The alleyway looked exactly like the kind of “black market exchange” Uncle Strange has described to him about. He’s been to quite a few of these places to, of course, save Earth from various invasions, and in his stories those marketplaces where only the rules of the strongest were respected were always an important place. Now he was itching to go down there as well…it didn’t  _look_  so dangerous, did it?

Draco stood right beside them, a cocky smile on his face, as if he was daring the Gryffindors to break their rule and enter the forbidden realm of the devils. That is, until a man in grey robes squeezed past the curious Gryffindors and strode directly to him. 

“Mister Malfoy Junior.” The man with dirty, greasing hair called out, “This is a delight—a delight to see you again!”

Draco’s face dropped. Clearly, something was unexpectedly wrong. “Yes, Mr. Borgin.” He nodded distantly. It was strange how Draco’s demeanor changed—as if the (more or less) friendly second-year student was gone, replaced by an elegant and no doubt cunning noble prince. He looked cold, acted cold, and was just glancing at this Mr. Borgin with this cold, uncaring attitude…like Papa did sometimes, Harry noted, amused.

“We had a wonderful talk, me and your father.” Borgin continued with his oily voice. Then, as if just noticing the youngsters around them, he turned, “Ooh, misters, it is a pleasure, indeed a pleasure, to see y—”

“Enough.” Draco said with a voice that could literally freeze water, “Mr. Borgin, I must depart now—I am in something of a hurry right now.”

“Of course, Mister Malfoy. “Borgin said and bowed, eyes slowly and greedily scanning everyone in line, causing Fred and George to shuffle nervously, “We will have a chance to meet again, my friends. Drop by my shop and I will give you a discount—just for you—on one of our best… _items_.” He laughed in a sharp voice, then bowed again and disappeared into the dark, gloomy alleyway.

“Man he’s creepy,” Fred mumbled, still stretching his neck to peek into the Knockturn Alley, but at least he didn’t look like he wanted to go in there anymore.

Ron stared after him. “Is everyone in Knockturn Alley like  _that_?” He asked.

Draco shrugged. Quite suddenly, he was back to his usual self again. “Some. Borgin is on the more annoying side.”

“He was talking to  _your father_?” Hermione was obviously focused on something else, “He sounds like he’s up to some really nasty business…”

“Dad was having a meeting with him.” Draco told her, “That’s exactly how I got kicked out and ended up running into Harry.”

“Speaking of which, did any of you guys even  _notice_  what happened in Greenwich?” Harry asked. When all three of the Weasleys—and Hermione—shook their head, he sighed, “You know, I am sort of surprised at how slow information travels in the wizardry world…”

“What happened in Greenwich?” George asked.

“We can tell you later.” Harry said, checking the time, “It should be time for books now, everyone.” 

“Let’s get there before Mrs. Weasley starts getting worried.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished ThorTDW plotline :D Now I need to work out how the diary still ends up in Hogwarts...
> 
> Hmm also, I'll try to update regularly, but from basically now on I'm expecting to be busy in real life, so can't promise anything there. I'll try to make sure I update at least once two weeks :) Big thanks to everyone who's still following the story


	8. Chapter 8

As they walked towards the book shop, Fred and George got distracted by some other things on sale in the supplies shop and steered off track, and Tom popped back into Harry’s head, satisfied with the materials he had played with. None of them were expecting the long line at  _Flourish and Blotts_  as they approached. A huge crowd had gathered in front of the book shop, mostly consisting of middle-aged women, and Harry had to stretch his neck to see the huge banner on the window. 

“Gilderoy Lockhart, will be signing copies of his autobiography _MAGICAL ME._ ” He read out loud, “Huh.”

“Lockhart?” Hermione’s eyes widened, “Wow! It’s actually him? He’s written almost the whole booklist!”

“Yea I don’t really care about  _that_  right now.” Harry chewed on his lips, “Does anyone see Mrs. Weasley? I can’t find anyone here.”

“We can get the other books first. There aren’t that many but I really don’t want to get through this…” Draco said, frowning at the still-growing crowd, obviously hating the idea of having to squish through all those women.

“Come on.” Harry said, grabbing his wrist, “Just follow us.”

They started grabbing copies of books on their list, moving around in the crowd agilely. Finally Harry spotted Mrs. Weasley with the rest of their family, alongside Mr. and Mrs. Granger, and pulled Draco towards them: “I see Mrs. Weasley!”

Draco quickly pulled him back. “You really think it’s a good idea for me to meet that family?” He hissed, “You do realize how much we hate each other?”

“I thought you like Ron.” Harry blinked. Then, seeing Draco’s expression he added: “Or at least Fred and George?”

“That doesn’t mean I like their  _entire_  family.” Draco huffed, “Did you see the way that Weasley girl was staring at your picture? It’s outright  _disgusting_. You should be glad that she hasn’t caught sight of the real you yet.”

 _You know, I agree with that._  Tom said, sounding amused.  _She sort of looks like she wants to eat you alive when she looks at those pictures._

 _What pictures?_  Harry asked, surprised.

_Didn’t you see that note book in her hand? It literally consists of hundreds of your pictures. Man, you’ve got a crazy fan club going there._

“Ur.” Harry shivered and decided to not argue with Draco. “Fine, let’s see if there’s anything else we need.”

He shooed Ron and Hermione towards the adults, and dragged Draco off in another direction. As they moved past the shelves containing Lockhart’s books, Harry decided to get an entire series just to satisfy his curiosity—why would he be so famous? At last they reached the counter, where Harry and Draco each payed their bills and received a bag full of books. 

“Ugh.” Harry complained as he, again, had to push past all the women to get out of the shop, “You know what, I’m starting to dislike this guy already. Out of every damn place, he has to pick a _book store_ , on one of its  _busiest days_ , to do this whole autobiography signing thing.”

Draco nodded gravely. 

Once they made their way out to the streets the amount of human beings around them dramatically decreased to an acceptable level. Finally, Harry was able to breathe again. Before he started searching around, Loki appeared beside the duo in a flash—at the same time Harry heard at least a few breaths being drawn in by various witches on the street. Harry quickly skipped to his side.

“You’ve gotten everything?” Loki asked, taking the bags from Harry, “The book store seems busy today.”

“Yep.” Harry answered joyfully, turning around to look into the window of Flourish and Blotts again. Even from here he could still see the endless people gathered inside and hear the sound of old-fashioned cameras snapping pictures. “Apparently there’s this famous author signing books here…I think half of the whole wizarding world is here.”

Loki chuckled. “And you, Mr. Malfoy?” He turned to Draco, “Have a good time?”

“It’s nice.” Draco made a face, “Would’ve been much nicer if there hadn’t of been so many witches here.”

Loki nodded knowingly. Then, as if just noticing the witches who were staring at him and had formed a loose circle around them, Loki made a gesture with his hand—judging by the gasps that followed, Harry knew he must’ve done something quite dramatic. “Harold, would you like to bid farewell to your friends? We will be prepared to leave shortly.”

Harry hesitated and looked inside the store again, and when he saw the amount of people in there he decided against it. “I’ll just text Hermione when I get back.” He said, “I would rather not have to go in there again…”

“Well then.” Loki nodded, “Let us depart. Mr. Malfoy, if you do not mind, I will send you back first.” He said and placed a hand on Draco’s shoulder. In a wave of green energy, all three of them were gone.

Almost right after the group hae left, the door of the Flourish and Blotts banged open. A wizard with wavy, flaxen hair and very bright and shiny teeth came out and scanned around the street. A moment later a huge group of people rushed out of the store too, holding cameras and books in their hand.

“Mr. Lockhart.” A shabby man with a name-tag that said  _Daily Prophet_  asked, “Was there an emergency?”

“Looks like our new guest just left.” Lockhart said, flashing his teeth at the camera, then turned back towards the audiences, “Ladies and gentlemen, just now I spotted one of our special guests, who of course had the insight of buying an entire series of my books! Unfortunately, he has left already, otherwise I would’ve offered to sign all his books, yes, the greatest wizard of the twenty first century himself…yes…lady, this way…remember to put it in the report, will you? It’s  _Harry Potter_ , sir, we will definitely be worth the front page…”

***

The summer ended quicker than Harry would’ve wanted, and as always on a busy note. It’s as if, all of a sudden, all the villains started acting up again. Clint was sent out, again, with Natasha left to deal with some organization or another in Eastern Europe, while in the States several incidents of explosions were reported to be organized by a person named The Mandarin. It would usually be a subject of Tony’s interest, but he was so busy with Stark Industry—especially the magical department—everyday that Fury handed the investigation mission straight to Steve instead. Fury…well, he’s supposed to be retired, but Harry guessed that none of SHIELD’s agents, old or new, ever really retired from their work.

It was the night before the designated trip to Platform 9 and 3/4 when an unexpected guest appeared in Harry’s room. Lab, more precisely. Harry was “nesting” comfortably on the couch with Dreki, casually checking through the new automated control protocol on a StarkPad. Then, with a loud crack a strange creature appeared on the floor in front of him. Harry looked up from the pad and stared at the thing—a house elf! Wearing a really dirty pillowcase! He remembered seeing those creatures in Hogwarts’ kitchen—but why would a house-elf appear in his room?

“Can I help you?” Harry asked, holding a hand up to cancel the alarm JARVIS was going to send off as Dreki poked her head up, staring at the elf curiously.

“Harry Potter!” The house elf squealed, “This is an honour—to finally meet you, sir, Dobby’s always wanted to meet you!”

“Er.” Harry blinked. He didn’t realize he had a fan club in the house-elves too. Still, it gets a bit too much when your fan tries to follow you home. “Okay…it’s nice to meet you too. Is there a reason you’re here though—are you here to send a message?”

“Oh yes, Dobby comes to warn Harry Potter.” The house elf flapped its great ears happily, eyes fixed on Harry with a sort of determination in them, “Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts!”

“You’re not making sense.” Harry stared at it, confused, “What do you mean, I must not return to Hogwarts?”

“Hogwarts is not safe for Harry Potter!” Dobby said with a sharp, high-pitched voice, “Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts!”

“Stop calling me Harry  _Potter_.” Harry said sharply, getting a little bit annoyed, “It’s Stark-Lokason now.”

The house elf’s eyes widened. He suddenly turned and started banging its head on the counter next to the coach. “Dobby offended Harry Potter! Dobby didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, oh Dobby is so sorry!”

“Stop. Hey, hey, stop!” Harry had to get up by now. He dropped the pad and rushed to help Dobby up from the floor, “It’s okay, you didn’t offend me. Sit down, will you? Just…just tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

Dobby, on the other hand, was suddenly excited by something else. “ _Sit down_! Harry Potter told Dobby to  _sit_  down! Never, never did a wizard…like an  _equal_ …”

Harry sighed and stared at it. What in the name of Valhalla, he thought, waiting for Dobby to share more insight into whatever it was ranting on about.

“Harry Potter is not safe in Hogwarts. Bad things will happen this year.” Dobby finally went back on track, “Dobby can’t say what, sir, but Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts! Please, Harry Potter must swear he wouldn’t return to Hogwarts!”

“Yea, you’re just repeating yourself.” Harry crossed his arms, “There’s no way I’m going to swear that if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Dobby can’t say, Dobby can’t say!” Dobby screamed, “Harry Potter won’t return to Hogwarts if he doesn’t have friends, Dobby did it for the best, but Dobby lost them all—”

“Wait a minute.” Harry’s eyes grew wide as he realized what Dobby was saying. “Are you talking about the  _letters_?”  _Was that fucking why he wasn’t receiving them throughout the first half of the summer??_

“Dobby stopped them, but a force took them away!” The house elf looked dismayed, “Harry Potter mustn’t be angry…Dobby did it for the best…”

Harry took in a deep breath. That force must had been his Papa summoning the letters, he realized. But even though no damage was really done by Dobby…“Get out, please.” He said, “You might not think this way, but what you did is  _not_  acceptable.”

“Harry Potter mustn’t be angry, Dobby did it for the best!” Dobby whined, “Say you won’t go back to Hogwarts, please!”

“I said, get out, please.” Harry repeated, trying to be polite.

“Then Harry Potter leaves Dobby no choice.” The house elf said sadly, then snapped its finger. It’s like suddenly, the whole room came alive, objects began to dance in the sky and crash into each other. “If Dobby destroy enough here…Harry Potter’s family will be in trouble…then Harry Potter wouldn’t go back to Hogwarts…HARRY POTTER MUST NOT RETURN TO HOGWARTS!”

“JARVIS, set off intruder alarm!” Harry jumped up, and Dreki quickly flew down from his shoulder to chase Dobby. He yelled, “Engage  _Protocol M-42_  and get this guy  _out of here_!”

Alarm went off, and the whole building flashed in red. “Activating energy shield.” JARVIS reported, “Damage area, floor 77 quarter A. Engaging anti-magic field in selected areas.”

A wave of blue energy swept over Harry, making him suddenly feel heavy—since his seidr is a type of magic and was somewhat affected by the field as well. As the anti-magic field began to take effect, things that were previously floating suddenly lost control of themselves and fell down to the floor. Dobby screamed, trying to hide away from a fiercely attacking Dreki: “Dobby can’t control it anymore, Dobby lost control! Harry Potter must not be angry—Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts! Harry Potter...”

 _Wow wow wow what is going on here?_  Tom’s voice popped into Harry’s head.  _I was only gone for ten minutes! What’s a house elf doing here?_

 _Be glad you missed out on this._  Harry said darkly.  _This is certainly not fun, and I still haven’t figured out what is going on._

Dobby made one last shriek before disapparating, just as the ceiling opened and an Iron Man suit flew in directly from above. “Hey kid!” Tony’s faceplate snapped open, “There's a magical intruder?”

“It’s a house elf.” Harry told him, scanning the room, “I think it’s crazy—he kept saying I mustn’t return to Hogwarts and then started smashing everything! As though that would stop me from going!” He wrinkled his nose, “Ugh, and it actually  _did_  some damage…oh right, JARVIS, Code-Green. Deactivate alarm please.”

“Deactivating defence.” JARVIS announced, “Master Harry, if you would like, next time an unauthorized presence appears in the tower unexpectedly…don’t treat it with such politeness.”

“Yea, I guess.” Harry mumbled.

“What was the house elf’s name?” Tony asked, “I might be able to find its master…and ask about the situation perhaps?” He glanced around the lab, “Let’s clean up first. How’s the damage J? It doesn’t look that bad actually…”

“Dobby.” Harry said, “It’s Dobby.” He sighed, “Last night home before school starts, and I get  _this_ …”

“Cheer up, buddy.” Tony patted Harry on the back, “I feel like I know a house-elf named Dobby—gonna check to be sure. J, call Dummy down will you? Yes, tell him to take the elevator—and no, no fire extinguisher. Come on Harry, I still have time to show you my new project before we head to London.”


	9. Chapter 9

As Harry stepped into King’s Cross a few hours later, his head was still ringing with the whole “Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts” thingy. He yawned and pushed his trolley towards the barrier between the muggle world and the wizardry world, absentmindedly calculating the amount of time he still have to stride along the platform once he gets his suitcase up into the cabin (which was approximately none seeing how it was already close to eleven,) but instead of going through the barrier, he heard a “bang” as his trolley hit the wall.

Dreki shrieked as it was startled awake, flapping its wings, clearly irritated by the sudden motion.

“What?” Harry blinked, trying to wake himself up a bit more. It was barely six in the morning EDT, and after a whole night of cleaning his lab he’s really not having all that patience for this. “What the hell.” He said, exasperated.

Tony reached out to touch the wall as well. “Weird.” He hummed, checking the platform numbers again, “It’s not that elf again, is it?”

 _I bet it is._ Tom muttered. _I’m gonna_ _kill_ _that thing the next time I see it._

“I don’t know.” Harry sighed. He should’ve asked Dr. Strange to teleport him directly into the express, really—or better yet, directly into Hogwarts. Normally he would ask his Papa for assistance, but then Loki had to go back to Asgard to deal with the...treason that he sort of committed during the Code-Red mission.

“I hope it’s not that elf.” Tony knocked on the cold wall and mumbled darkly, “Because I’m starting to get pissed and whoever did this will not enjoy the consequence. Alright let’s see what we can do—” He wrinkled his nose, “We have quite a few choices, actually. Choice one, which of course includes a lot of sub-choices, involves me calling Strange and asking him to send us through—well, as a matter of fact, I do believe you can send yourself over?” Tony cocked his head, “That is…if we can find your sling ring in all those suitcases.”

“Okay.” Harry nodded, swallowing up another yawn, “I think I have…at least _some_ idea where my ring is.”

 _By which you mean none_. Tom snorted. _That’s exactly what happens when you try to put your stuff together last minute before traveling._

 _Not my fault._ Harry complained.  _Blaim that house elf._

“Sub-choices would include getting you on that train, because we’ll most likely miss it at the platform, getting you into your dorm or going straight to headmaster’s office and ask Gandalf how a thing like this is even a possibility.” Tony shrugged, “Third one’s the best, of course, but maybe you’ll want to know about the alternative.”

 _Hey, hey._ Tom nudged Harry. _Wake up—give some response at least? Sounds like something exciting is coming his way._

“Yea?”

“Have your suit with you?” Tony asked, taking off his sunglasses, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “If we fly we might still catch the train—actually, we’ll probably catch the train before it even gets out of London.”

“What about the suitcases?” Harry asked, eyes lighting up at the suggestion. He quickly reached for his suitcase and took a smaller, almost completely metallic red case out. “Which way?”

“Let’s get out of the station first.” Tony said the same time the clock struck eleven, “JARVIS, get all members of Iron Legion in SI London Division ready. We’ll have a team taking care of your luggage.” He told Harry, “Dreki can fly along with us—that is, unless she prefers sleeping. Quick, this way! The train’s going already.”

Harry swiftly followed his father, just as a couple suit of armours scooped in from above and landed on the platform, arousing a few whistles and yells from all around. Luckily the two of them had already left the platform—it wouldn’t’ve been fun if they got stuck on the busiest station in England…even possibly with _reporters_. As they move through the crowd pieces of a full suit shot over from far away, barely halting before hitting Tony square in the face and finally, hovered in the air for Tony to collect.

“Meet Mark XLII.” Tony explained as he put his hand into the flying gauntlet, “Remote sensor and detection. Pretty convenient, eh? Saves me the time of running back and forth. Works even if J is offline—not that he’s going offline any time soon.”

“Yea...” Harry blinked again, “But why don’t you put them in a central node, like around your reactor or something? Like the way you made my gauntlet? That would be more convenient, right?”

“Of course kiddo, you’re definitely on the right track.” Tony laughed, “Still trying to figure out some technical details on that prototype though—be prepare to meet her in a couple months!”

 _A couple of months for another world-changing technology. Great. Sounds exactly like the kind of thing Dad would do._ Tom mumbled, sounding both excited and amused.

“Sir, if I may.” JARVIS spoke through the suit speaker, “The Mark XLII you are currently wearing is also a prototype that still has unfinished safety measures; I would strongly suggest against—”

“Yea yea of course. I’ll fix that in a while. In a few days. A few months. Year. Maybe never.” Tony said dismissively, “Where’s the rest of my...ah.”

Before he even finished his sentence, various pieces of Mark XLII shot out of the sky and wrapped themselves around Tony, as people all around gasped—Harry just noticed that they were actually doing all this right in front of the crowd. He was pretty sure he’s seen quite a few phones and cameras already focused on them.

“Mark XLII assembly completed. Operating system checks completed.” JARVIS announced as the final piece clicked into the rest of the suit. The faceplate locked into place, and Tony’s voice rang through the speaker: “Come on Harry! If you wanna fly, let’s be fast.”

Harry laid the suitcase on the floor and stepped onto it. The suitcase scanned Harry’s data, and as the identification was verified it quickly and smoothly transformed into his sleek suit of armour. As the mask also closed over his face, there was a brief period of complete darkness before the operating system started. Images, data and various system checks appeared before Harry as JARVIS started speaking: “Master Harry, I am now taking over your operating system—I have to say that it is needing some serious update. Travel safe.”

“Thanks J.” Harry grinned, following Tony out of the train station. A crowd of suits had already taken his luggages up into the sky, which obviously attracted loads of attention, and Harry spotted Dreki clinging onto a suit painted like the American flag.

“Sky’s clear, looking awesome.” A window popped up, giving Harry a live feed of Tony in his armour, “Ready? JARVIS, activate invisibility. Time to rock!”

“Sir, Miss Potts is on the phone, demanding to speak with you, sir.” JARVIS’ voice came from the other side.

“What? Now?” Tony asked, surprised, “It’s still six in New York—three in California. She’s in Cali, right? Either way, there’s no way she’s needing me for anything...right now.”

“No, sir, but you did just make the headline of ten different news websites—count’s still increasing, sir.”

“Exactly why we need to go invisible.” Tony puffed, “Tell Pepper everything’s fine. Also, tell her I’m on vacation and not going to any meeting right now. Harry, let’s find that train. Oh, and give a call to Rhodey too...actually never mind. He’s probably still in bed. Keep an eye on the sky for us, J.”

JARVIS sighed. “As you wish, sir. Activating Invisible Mode.” He said, just as the duo shot straight up into the sky.

 _I’m off on my own._ Tom whispered one last word into Harry’s ears before disappearing into the air. Of course—Harry remembered—ghosts have the natural ability to fly. Except, does Tom really count a ghost? Er...

The street way of London shrunk below them as Harry soared high up into the sky, and soon they were able to see the whole landscape. Big Ben, London Bridge…“Target detected.” JARVIS announced, “Master Harry, on your right.”

“Where—oh I see it.” Harry turned to his right. The bright red Hogwarts Express train was striding underneath, swiftly passing through the streets—it’s quite amazing how the express was able to travel through the muggle world without attracting attention. After all, it’s not that common to see an old-fashioned bright red train traveling around the city. Would definitely make a perfect Instagram post...

“Clear view on the target. I say we can just land on the roof.” Tony reported from the other side, “Harry, ready to take a dip?”

“Yea.” Harry said, eyes bright, scanning through the various graphs and data flowing through the display in his mask, “Dropping down now.” He whistled. A few flaps on his suit automatically extended out to aid with the landing—obviously with JARVIS’ help. Harry can’t deny that, well, flying with an A.I. really did require far less control and effort than flying on his own.

Landing went smoothly, although it was the first time Harry ever landed his suit on a moving vehicle. He carefully stood up on the red roof of the train, and tried to walk around. _Would people inside hear us?_ He wondered.

Tony landed right next to him. “Caught the train.” He said through the speaker, “Are we still in London? JARVIS, give us some direction here.”

They had already left the city, and was now traveling through the countryside. Harry walked to the edge of the roof and peered down. Could he see his friends from the window here?

“Unfortunately, sir, you missed the borderline of the city by approximately a hundred meters. Currently we are heading north.” JARVIS replied, sounding amused, “Sir, I have an urgent message from Colonel Rhodes. Would you like me to repeat it?”

“He’s up already?” Tony sounded surprised, “It’s barely seven right now. In the States, I mean.”

“Sir, if I remember correctly, personals in the army are required to report to work before six*.” JARVIS said, continuing with the message, “And if you’re wondering, sir, Colonel Rhodes asks you why ‘the hell is your suit in UK.’ He also asks you to ‘get down now before the British government start shooting missiles in your direction.’”

“How did he know we’re here? Radar? Wait I thought I programmed it into the suits—damn, I knew there’s stuff I need to improve with my invisibility tech.”

“Sir, let me remind you again—the pictures of your suit assembly already made the headline of over twenty different newspaper and news sites.” JARVIS said, and somehow he sounded sarcastic, “I’m sure Colonel Rhodes noticed that as well.”

Tony made a sound, “Okay. Makes sense. And look, Rhodey’s threatening me! Aw isn’t that cute. Alright J, tell Rhodey I’m fine, 'm not hostile, just having a little bit of fun here. And let the Legion land on the train as well. We can have a picnic here.”

“Sir, if I may.” JARVIS interrupted again, “I would suggest against picnic on top of a train." Tony opened his mouth to protest, but JARVIS cut his words, "Also,sir, you have a board meeting scheduled in one and a half hour, a meeting scheduled with the army general and another with the president in five hours. I would suggest against staying too long as well.”

“Hey, J, this is a no work zone.” Tony pouted, “What is that board meeting about? Call Pepper; cancel the meeting or something—she’ll understand. Come on, it’s not like I can just throw my son up here—”

“Dad!” Harry, who had been listening in on their conversation through the live feed, protested, “I can do this on my own, Dad, I’m not a five years old that needs supervision all the time!”

“You’re twelve. That’s not such a big difference.” Tony puffed. At the same time, three more suits dropped down from higher in the sky, each making a loud thud as they landed beside the two, and each carrying one of Harry’s luggages. Dreki made a loud squeak from high above and soared down as well, and for a moment it seemed to have crashed into one of the suits and disappeared, only to resurface a moment later behind another silver armour. A half-transparent Tom soon followed down; he was pretending to sit on one of the suits (because of course he couldn’t _really_ touch the suits) and grinned at Harry.

“JARVIS can take care of any emergency—we programmed a copy of him into my phone, right?” Harry continued, ignoring Dreki, who had been playing hide and seek among the shiny armours. He took out his phone as a proof and glanced down to see a couple unanswered calls—wait, who would be calling him at this time? “Dad, I think your work’s more important—really. I sort of feel bad, you know, like the whole Stark Industry depends on you and then I’m taking all your time...”

“Nonsense. At least half of SI doesn’t even need me to operate.” Tony argued. When he saw Harry frown, Tony hesitated a bit, before sighing and turning to look over the beautiful landscape they were traveling through, “No way you’re staying on here the whole time. You know what, let’s do it this way. I’ll get you into this train first, settle you down, then I’ll go and see what Pep’s up to this time.”

“Deal.” Harry responded quickly, “I think I could get one of my friends to open the window for me...as long as they can be opened. I’ll go check.” He said, climbing to the edge of the train top.

“I’ll get the train captain—or attendant then.” Tony ordered, “I’ll call you once I find someone. We’ll keep this under half an hour. And Tom?” He called out, “Tom? Hearing me? Start searching through the luggage for the sling ring. J, help Tom with it. Would’ve been so much easier if we have the scanner in our labs—just in case none of those works we’ll get in through the portal. All clear?”

“Roger.” Tom grinned and gave thumbs-upup. Harry also made a gesture, before deliberately letting himself fall over the roof and activating thrusters.

“Aright, time for some flying and searching.” Tony yelled, “Let’s go! And do this fast.”

*I don’t know anything about armies. Totally made this up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyall! It's been a while! It's quite exciting :D Harry's finally going to school!
> 
> Probably update again next week. I haven't written a lot the past few days but I'll try to work on the story on the weekends :D Sorry for the wait and thanks again to everyone who's still with me :D


	10. Chapter 10

She’s supposed to be reading. Right, reading. Except she couldn’t concentrate at all—not even Lockhart’s exciting adventures with...what is it this time? Vampires? could calm her down.

Hermione sighed, staring at the same page she had been staring at for the past ten minutes. Out of everything, the last thing she was expecting was that Harry would not be on the train. They didn’t see him on the platform, then even after they had boarded the train there was no sight of Harry. Hermione and Ron literally combed through all the compartments, but he was nowhere to be found—and not answering his phone either! 

The compartment door made a cracking sound as it opened. At once Hermione shut the book and looked up—and to her surprise, the Weasley twins shuffled inside. She blinked: “Can I...help you?”

“Shh!” One of the twins hissed, while the other one quickly closed the compartment door. Hermione watched one of them take out a spider-shaped...joking product? and placed it on the door. It moved around a bit, before finding a perfect place to nest in—directly on the compartment door handle.

“What is this about?” Hermione asked, watching the twins closely. One of them turned towards Hermione. “For locking the door.” He grinned, “I tell ya, not even an  _Alohomora_  unlocks a door secured with a guardian spider!”

“We made it at home, you know.” The other one said, “Can’t have Percy or Mom randomly intruding our room.”

The first one spoke again. “Of course piercing charms could still have an effect, but that would be the door and lock’s fault, not the spider’s.”

“Okay.” Hermione blinked again. That...sounds quite impressive, actually. She could probably find ten ways to use this technique that are better than blocking out nosy brothers. The thing though... “You still haven’t told me why you’re here...locking everyone out.”

“Right.” The first twin clapped his hand together, then started searching around the compartment with his brother. Hermione leaned back, frowning and suddenly feeling like the compartment was ten times smaller with the two of them eagerly moving around. “So we heard from Baby Ron that Baby Harry’s missing—”

“—I’ll tell you a secret, we know where Baby Harry is!”

“—Can’t have Baby Ron worrying—”

“—Can’t let others see this either—”

“—Well  _we_  would’ve wanted audience.  _Harry_  probably  _doesn’t_ —”

“—Would’ve asked Malfoy except there were more Slytherins in his compartment—”

“—Now all we need—”

“—Is this!” The...whichever twin it was, finally said, unlocking the bolt on the window and opening it wide.

“Hey!” Hermione stood up, “Guys, do you know how bad of an idea it is to open the window of a vehicle traveling at a fast speed—” She suddenly narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “Wait, are you trying to get something in? Are you—Harry?!”

The armour outside their window waved at Hermione.

“A bit wider!” Fred—or maybe George—yelled, pulling the window panel down. Harry flew closer to the window, and with a loud “chuck” he grabbed onto the window sill. “How’s it going, guys?” He asked and flipped up his face plate, grinning widely. He turned his head and scanned the compartment, “Ooh, it’ll get a bit crowded but I think I can get in now. Thanks!”

“No prob!” One of the twins said, while the other whistled loudly, “This is absolutely brilliant, Harry! Where’s your luggages?”

“I’ll get them down in just a moment.” Harry said, aligning his position in order to squeeze through the window easier.

Hermione was still staring at Harry in disbelief, eyes wide, before sense suddenly came back to her and she shrieked: “Harry! How can you—get in here!”

“Well yea, I’m trying! J, tell Dad I won this round.” Harry said, as he suddenly turned up the thruster’s power and let go of the window sill. And shot straight into the compartment. Hermione had to shut her eyes as the suit crashed into the coach on the side, shaking the walls. The twins cheered again.

“Perfect.” Harry let out a breath audibly. He moved back towards the window, this time to take in his bags, which were also flying around, being held by various iron man armours—seriously, Hermione didn’t ever think she would have the privilege to meet so many different versions of the suit. Harry threw the bag onto the holder, then waved at the last armour that was following them outside the window. “I’m good, Dad!” He yelled, “You can leave now.”

The red and gold figure gave everyone a thumbs up before swerving left and flying off. Harry forced his trunk into the overhead bin with a loud cracking sound, before holding his hand out and stepping out of the armour. “Thanks J.” He said—directed to no one in particular as far as Hermione could tell.

Okay. She blinked again.  _Okay_. So Harry’s on board. That’s nice. That’s  _fantastic_. She’s feeling real dizzy now. What just happened? Most important of all—“Harry, why didn’t you get on the train...normally?”

“Something happened to the barrier and it wouldn’t let me through.” Harry shrugged, storing the red and gold baggage that his suit had collapsed into away, “Don’t know what happened. Just so you know, I wasn’t late either. I was on time.” He said, then squeezed all the way to the window again. “Don’t close it yet.” He said.

Hermione followed his gaze and looked out of the window. Sure enough, there was a black, flying object that was following them closely. “Dreki!” Harry yelled, and the black thingy obediently flew into the compartment.

The Weasley twins quickly worked on closing up the window, while Dreki flapped its wings around and sniffled at Hermione’s robe. Hermione smiled and petted the smooth, cold scale of the...not-dragon, wondering how big a size it would it grow into. Harry did say something about a large cat, right?

“Mission completed!” One of the twins cheered, the same time Hermione started asking again: “But how is that possible? Nothing should block you from entering the platform...”

“Who knows.” Harry made a face, “I think Dumbledore should expect another chat from Dad pretty soon. We thought it could be the doing of a crazy house elf we met a a while back...does the name Dobby ring a bell?”

All three of them in the compartment shook their head. Harry sighed. “Wasn’t expecting you guys to know either.” He mumbled, then recounted the whole Dobby ordeal, “...and it kept saying I must not return to Hogwarts. It’s really weird, I mean, what could go wrong?”

“Ah-hem.” One of the twins coughed, while the other reminded him, “Although I would say what happened last year was fun, you can’t deny it’s not something that’s supposed to happen at Hogwarts.”

“Yet I survived.” Harry beamed brightly, a smug expression on his face. Then his smile faded and he sighed: “But really, this, is a bit too much. That house elf pretty much caused me more trouble than Voldemort last semester.”

“He sure sounds crazy.” One of the twins wrinkled his nose, and the other added, “Very fishy.”

Hermione frowned as her brain turned, fast. “But house elves must act on their master’s order...who would want you out of the school?”

“There’s at least a handful of Slytherins who hate me.” Harry frowned as well, “But why telling me that I would be in danger by attending school? I mean, if they want me kicked out they could’ve done it in a thousand different, easier, and more efficient way...” He said in a very thoughtful way, “Well I can literally think of ten on the top of my head...”

“You’re implying something, Harry!” One of the twins made a face, while the other shrugged, “Mate, it’ll all work out fine. It always does.” He paused, “So he was stopping your letters? Huh, I wondered. Ron thought it was Errol’s fault and even tried borrowing Hermès, but then your letter just appeared on our dinner table one day and...well, we sorta let it slip.”

“Errol?” Harry asked, curious. 

Hermione remembered that owl...it was old. Very ancient actually, and almost died of a heart stroke when it was dropping off one of Hermione’s letters.  _The Weasley family is really, really in need of a different ow_ l, she thought.

“That’s the ancient owl we have at home.” The other twin told him, “Hermès is Percy’s owl. You know, the perfect Prefect Percy? He’s been acting odd this summer too, and wouldn’t even let us see his owl...”

As they talked on, there was a knock on the compartment door and loud sounds when someone tried to move the handle.

“Oh right, that’s probably little Ron!” The twins said together, grinning mischievously. One of them stroked the spider still crawling on the door handle, and the other one pushed it open. “Hey Ron!” He beamed—so it indeed was Ron, “We found Harry.”

“Oh you did?!” Ron’s surprised sound came in. He moved past the twins, and—yes, they’ve found Harry! “Harry! Mate! Where did you go! Hermione and I were—”

Suddenly the spider toy from the door handle jumped and launched itself onto Ron. Ron made the most indignant scream as the twins ran out of the compartment, laughing hysterically. He quickly brushed the spider toy off and shivered, face pale: “For the love of Merlin! I’m going to  _kill_  them the next time they do this!”

Harry laughed. Hermione couldn’t help smiling a bit too. She picked up the book she laid down before and continued reading, as the boys chatted and talked about their summers...

***

They got a completely different experience this year, as returners instead of newbies. For one thing, they didn’t take the boat to the castle. They hopped off at Hogsmeade station, and were then directed onto carriages driven by beautiful black winged horses. Harry’s eyes widened as he marveled at the being. “She’s pretty.” He whispered, and reached out to stroke its back.

Ron stared at him with horror. “What...what are you talking about. Harry?” He stuttered, “There...there’s nothing there!”

“What?” Harry turned, confused.

 _Man, I think you fell asleep when we read Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them_  _together._ Tom mumbled. 

“It’s nothing to worry about.” Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron, “Those are  _Thestrals_ , idiot, only seen by those who have witnessed death. You should read more books, Ron! And you too, Harry.” She warned, “It’s clearly stated in  _Hogwarts: A History_.”

“Yea.” Harry said, a bit sheepish. Witnessed death? Okay, well, he’s seen quite a few violent, real life battle actions, and he literally killed Quirrell last term. Made sense he could see those night creatures. He hopped onto the carriage and looked around: “Did you guys see Draco?”

“Saw him with a couple Slytherins on the train.” Ron replied, “I think they’re mostly first years—never seen them before. Zabini was with him too.” 

The carriage took them directly to the castle, and as the students walked into the Great Hall they quickly settled down for the sorting ceremony. Harry sat with his friends, and stretched his neck as the new students were led by Professor McGonagall through the door.

“The youngest in my family—Ginny—she’s being sorted this year.” Ron whispered to him under his breath, “I hope she’s in Gryffindor too—all my family’s in Gryffindor.”

Ginny Weasley. That name sure made an impression on Harry—that (sort of) crazy fan girl who had a photo album of him, right? He still remembered how shocked he was when he found out about the  _pictures_  involved...

As each student was called up to the front and sorted, Harry clapped alongside his housemates. Just like Ron had hoped, his sister was sorted into Gryffindor—the Sorting Hat yelled out the answer almost the second it covered her head. Harry distractedly thought that the sorting hat should really be having a bath soon, ignoring Ron’s excited cheering for his sister.

Just as he did last year, Dumbledore spoke a few words of warning, sang the Hogwarts school song, and began the feast. Harry nibbled at a pumpkin pie, while shovelling a handful of grape, vegetable, and easy-to-carry desserts into his pocket. Ever since Dreki grew into the size of his pillow, Harry had decided that it was probably not a great idea to take her with him all the time—during classes, lunches, dinners...even with his illusions the playful Dreki might crash into someone or something and ruin everything. So...now it’s his responsibility to steal food from the table and feed Dreki. 

Technically he could go to the kitchen every night to grab food, but tonight was the start-of-the-year feast and Harry thought maybe he should just take from the table.

 _Would’ve been so much easier if you had learned to use pocket dimensions_. Tom commented.

 _Yea, sorry I’m not a genius_. Harry rolled his eyes.  _How are you still here? I thought you’d be excited to explore Hogwarts on your own_. 

Tom laughed.  _I did! Of course I did. And I had a brilliant idea._

 _What?_ Harry asked, curious.

 _Just wait. You’ll see_.

Harry nodded distractedly, glancing up the Head Table. Dumbledore was smiling as he picked through the table for various desserts, Professor McGonagall sighing beside him. Professor Snape looked as grumpy as ever, and...is that Lockhart beside him?

“Lockhart’s our new DADA Professor?” Harry asked, surprised.

“You didn’t know that?” Hermione sounded even more surprised than he was, “Oh come on, don’t tell me you aren’t excited! He’s done all that great stuff! I have no idea how Professor Dumbledore even managed to recruit him!”

“Er.” Both Harry and Ron said, exchanging a glance. To be fairly honest, Harry didn’t really have that much faith in the new teacher. He had read the books—don’t get him wrong—but as far as he could tell all those adventures sounded quite bull-shit-y. They were amazing stories, really, but there were quite a bit of logical issues involved in almost every book that made the storyline almost impossible to achieve. But Harry wasn’t going to judge him just by that either—well look, if Iron Man and Captain America and Chitauri invasions could be real...there was a small chance that all those fancy stories were real as well, and maybe the vampire  _was_  stupid enough to mistake Lockhart, who was male and blonde, for her first love, who was female and had dark brown hair. Harry’s just not getting his hopes up. 

It was quite clear that Ron wasn’t exactly a Lockhart fan either, but he chose wisely and kept quiet as Hermione ranted on about all the great things Lockhart’s accomplished, a few other girls joining in mid-conversation. Harry glanced up the Head Table again, worry creeping up his heart as he saw Lockhart flashing his shiny white teeth at Snape, earning murderous glares from the Head of Slytherin.  _He really doesn’t look reliable_. Harry thought.

 _We’ll see to it_. Tom mused.  _I predict...very fun stuff’s gonna happen during your DADA class. Hope you’re prepared enough, brother!_

 _Definitely not._ Harry thought darkly, then returned his attention to the pumpkin pie.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Aaaand, yes. As Tom had predicted, the first DADA class they had was disastrous. And disappointing, to say the least. It was quite clear that Harry likely wouldn’t learn anything from Lockhart this year either. Really. Is there even a chance he’ll learn real defense against dark arts before he graduates?

It all started with some photo taking scandals. It was straight after lunch—Harry was hanging out in the castle with his friends, which included Hermione, Ron, Draco, and even Blaise Zabini, while Tom was off to do whatever he wanted to do, when a small boy wearing Gryffindor robes blocked their way. Well, “blocked their way” sounds wrong—more like, ended up in their way and forgot to get out. His face was so red that Harry could literally see smoke coming out of his mouth, and Harry carefully threw out a “Can I help you?”

“Harry, al-alright, Harry.” The boy said breathlessly, “I’m, I’m Colin Creevey. I’m in Gryffindor too—first year. Do you think...do you think it would be okay if I take a picture?”

“Picture...ur.” Harry blinked, alarmed. To be honest he was never big on publicity, although he was so familiar with it after living with his family for the past ten years. Then he just had the whole Ginny’s photo album thing and...

“Please?” The boy pleaded, “Just so I can prove I’ve met you?” He edged forward, taking a timid step towards Harry. “I know all about you! Everyone’s told me, about how you survived You-Know-Who’s attack, and that you are Harry Stark-Lokason! I was always an ordinary kid—never thought I would have a chance to meet you...” He drew in a deep breath, “I never knew I could do all this awesome stuff like magic, and people told me if I do pictures right they could move, like in films! I’m, I’m sending loads of them home, and it would be wonderful if I could have one of yours—”

All his friends were standing beside him, watching the situation with amusement. Harry shuffled around awkwardly—really, hearing a stranger ranting on about their life story is awkward. “Er.” He made another sound, not sure what to reply. He wondered how Dad feel like, when random people on the street ask him to take pictures. Harry’s seen quite a few of those flying around the internet already...then he remembered, right, his dad probably loved all the attention on him. Unlike Harry, who much preferred staying quiet and alone...

“—Please, maybe, maybe with your friends too, or can I stand beside you and then you can sign it...”

“That’s enough.” Draco finally had enough and scooped in to save the day, “Creevey, Harry’s not signing anything. Now go away.”

 _Thanks_. Harry shot a look in Draco’s direction before replying: “I regret to say so, Colin, but the answer is no. I would prefer no photos...and definitely no signing.”

“Please?” Colin pleaded, “It would be really awesome—”

“Harry said no.” Blaise cocked his head, “Is there something wrong with your ears?”

“—signed photo—”

“What is this? What is this?” Gilderoy Lockhart’s voice suddenly rang through the hallway, and Harry’s heart dropped. He now had a feeling that this would end badly. “Signed photos!” Lockhart’s eyes lit up when he saw Harry, and he rushed over, holding a stack of what looked like test paper and a black notebook. “Harry! I barely missed you last time in the book store—you could’ve asked me to sign all the books you bought! Of course, signed photos. Mr. Creevey! Now would be a perfect time!” He beamed at Colin, “Then we’ll both sign it for you!”

Harry considered murdering Lockhart, then and there. Both Slytherins were looking at Lockhart with carefully hidden disgust, Ron looked as though he didn’t know where he was, and Hermione seemed surprised. Colin wasted no time in snapping the photo, just as he bell rang for the afternoon class.

 _Perfect timing._  Harry thought, quickly trying to slip away before he was actually forced to sign that stupid picture. When Lockhart tried to get hold of him again, a stupid grin on his face, Harry used some illusions to trick him into thinking he was somewhere else. Just then, a boy wearing Hufflepuff robes crashed into Lockhart, knocking all the papers and notebook out of his hand. “Careful!” Lockhart said as he quickly picked up the items, an edge of nervousness in his voice.

“What’s our next class?” Harry asked quietly as he finally slipped out of the crowd towards his friends.

“Defense Against Dark Arts.” Hermione quickly replied, still studying at Lockhart, who has now straightened up again and was greeting the students into his classroom.

Harry groaned. He really, really didn’t want to see Lockhart again. Draco gestured a “good luck” at him, and Blaise patted him on his back, then the Slytherins all went off for their Transfiguration class. Ron looked at him sympathetically. “Couldn’t be worse than Quirrell, Mate.” He said, wrinkling his nose as if he was smelling that garlic breath from Quirrell again.

But, of course, as it turned out, things could, very much, be worse than before. Harry almost wanted to bang his head on the wall when he saw the questions on that test paper Lockhart handed to them all—

_1\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favourite colour?_

_2\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?_

_3\. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?_

_……_

The list went on and on until question fifth four. Harry stared at the paper in disbelief because—what the hell is this?! He looked around the classroom and saw at least half the people with his exact same expression, and the other half—mostly girls—were wasting no time in writing down answers.

Half an hour later Lockhart took all the papers up—Harry hadn’t even moved his pen an inch. He didn’t even bother taking out his StarkPad for notes—just crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited for whatever Lockhart still had to offer.

“Tut, tut — hardly any of you remembered that my favourite colour is lilac…a few of you need to read  _Wanderings with Werewolves_ more carefully — I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples…though I wouldn’t say no to a large bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky!” Lockhart said with a wink.

“ _Who_  would buy him a large bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky?” Ron whispered, looking around with crazy wide eyes like he couldn’t believe what was going on.

Harry sighed. Alright. He’s done with this class. Perfect. He still hoped that Lockhart would be somewhat true to his own books, skillful in spells and clever solutions against dark creatures, but judging by the scene in front? It didn’t look like that would happen. Harry didn’t even need those hours he spent with Aunt Natasha to tell that Lockhart wasn’t a trained fighter.  _But he was a cool novelist. Maybe he could teach us how to write._ Harry thought distractedly as Lockhart droned on and awarded Hermione ten points for correctly answering all the questions on the exam.

“Now, onto real business!” Lockhart said, again winking at the girls in the classroom as he carefully lifted a cage from under his desk, “It is my job to arm you with the knowledge against some of the darkest creatures known to the wizardry world, and you will soon find yourself facing some of them.” He glanced around the classroom and said with a low voice, “I must ask you to keep quiet—screaming might provoke them.”

Harry’s interest perked up. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what was in the cage. Ron beside him seemed nervous, and Hermione’s eyes were literally shining with excitement. Lockhart glanced around the room again, seemingly satisfied with the tension, then dramatically whipped off the cover.

“Yes.” he said,  _“Freshly caught Cornish pixies.”_

The little blue creatures inside the cage fluttered and made noises that sounded like nails scratching the blackboard as they were startled by the sudden light. Harry frowned and covered his ears, the same time the name Lockhart spit out brought out some very distinct memories of reading  _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ : “…mostly found in Cornwall, England…very mischievous…although wingless, they can fly and have been known to seize unwary humans by the ears…high-pitched jabbering…”

 _Wingless?_  Harry tried to look closer. Those guys Lockhart brought had thin, insect-like wings unlike the description in the book, but maybe that was because different sub-specie living in different areas of the world have different appearances…

“They are…” Sitting in the front row, Seamus choked out, “They’re not that dangerous, are they?” He asked nervously, “You’re not going to, er, let them out, right?”

“Oh, don’t be so sure!” Lockhart announced, “How else could you learn a  _practical_  lesson in how to fight them? Devilish creature, they are! Now be prepared!”

“What in the name of—” Ron jumped out of his seat, just as Lockhart opened the door of the cage and released all the pixies.

It took a total of half a minute for the entire classroom to dissolve into chaos. Two pixies grabbed Neville by the ears and tried to lift him up into the air, just as Ron jumped up to grab Neville’s leg to drag him back down. The two of them fell onto the floor, and another electric blue creature let out a sharp laughter and bit Ron’s ears. Harry soon lost track of Hermione, and he himself slipped through the crowd of people with the help of some illusions, looking around and trying to make sense of it all. Worst class ever, he thought to himself. Up in the front of the classroom, Lockhart was yelling at the class: “Come on! Don’t be shy! They are only pixies— _Peskipiksi Pesternomi!_ ”

Whatever Lockhart was trying to do, it didn’t work. Red sparks shot out of his wand, and an excited pixie soon swooped down to grab its new wooden stick toy from Lockhart. The next time Harry looked, Lockhart was cowering under the teacher’s desk, cursing at the creatures surrounding him. A pixie grabbed the leather-covered notebook Lockhart placed on the table and threw it at the wizard, and another one giggled with a sharp voice that made ears uncomfortable.

Then the bell rang—finally. Students all fled towards the door like there was no tomorrow, and along with them was a disheveled Lockhart. His eyes met Harry’s, who was standing next to Hermione and Ron, and the wizard’s eyes quickly lightened up: “Ah, I’ll just ask you to help nip the rest of them into the cage then! Don’t worry, they are only Pixies.” He even had the time to flash his bright white teeth again before closing the doors.

” _Only_  Pixies!” Ron repeated sharply, “What in Merlin’s name does he think he’s doing!”

Even Hermione was sighing now. She petrified two pixies that were lifting a bag of one of the students and tossed them back into the cage. “Come on.” She finally said, “These  _are_  only pixies after all.”

“Can you even  _believe_  that—” Ron roared.

“I’ll handle them.” Harry cut their argument. He quickly summoned his magic and decided to go the straightforward way—centring around him, ice soon spread out. The temperature in the room dropped dramatically, and the pixies all screamed. Before they could escape through the window or door, they were all frozen by Harry’s seidr, dropping on the ground like broken toys.

“WOw.” Ron gritted, hugging himself, “T-that is c-cool, Harry! I-I’m f-fr-freez-zing!”

“Sorry.” Harry stuck out his tongue and quickly rushed through the room, picking out pixies. The defence classroom was now covered in a thin layer of slippery ice, and beautiful patterns and ice-structures formed on the windows and desks. Hermione touched an icicle hanging from the window sill, and her eyes widened: “Oh my god Harry! How do you do this! It’s like-it’s like magic!"

“Just so y-you kn-now.” Ron said, still shaking, “You a-are also a w-witch, Hermione!”

“Yea, but I’m talking about magic like  _Frozen_.“ Hermione replied, eyes shining as she picked up books and bags from the floor, “Harry, do you think you can make a castle out of ice too?”

“Nah. I don’t have that natural talent.” Harry made a face. Now that Lockhart was gone and there were only the three of them in the room, even fighting pixies didn’t seem like a horrible activity. “I learned it in the summer when I was digging into books on Jotun magic. You know, I wonder if Elsa actually has blue skin.”

Hermione giggled as she sorted through all the bags and parchment and other items people left in the room.

“What are you talking about?” Ron wasn’t shivering anymore as Harry shoved the last pixie into the cage and made the ice vanish. He frowned and asked, “Who is Elsa?”

“It’s a character in the movie that came out last winter.” Hermione waved her hands around, placing a Potions textbook onto the table. “I downloaded it—I’ll show you later.” She picked up another notebook from the floor and glanced at its cover page, “Oh wow, this is old.”

“What?” Harry turned around, curious. At once he recognized it as the same notebook the pixies threw at Lockhart—the one Lockhart was carrying around when Colin took that damned photo. He glanced at the cover page and his eyebrows shot into his hairline: “It’s a diary…wait, Lockhart is that old? He's fifty? I mean, I saw him holding it.” He explained when Hermione turned to stare at him like he just grew a third head.

“That he was holding it doesn’t mean it belongs to him.” Hermione turned back and puffed, sounding slightly annoyed as she placed the notebook on the table, “And it’s  _Professor_  Lockhart, Harry. He’s a professor.”

“Admit it, Hermione, he’s really useless.” Ron said triumphantly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “It’s probably just a bad day for him.” She argued, but quickly stopped as though even she couldn’t think about a point to argue for Lockhart. “He  _has_  done some amazing stuff.” She finally put down.

“Well that’s what he  _said_  he did—”

“Why would Lockhart be holding a diary that is this old then? If it’s obviously not his…” Harry asked, directing the topic back to the notebook. The three of them stared down at the diary. Finally Hermione broke the silence: “Maybe he’s researching something. Like in the book  _Year with the Yeti_  he had to comb through over two hundred books…”

Ron lost his patience and reached out to flip open the book. On the first page, in eloquent letters, wrote “T. M. Riddle.”

“You shouldn’t be looking into a professor’s book!” Hermione frowned, but she was soon distracted, “Wait, actually, I think I’ve heard that name somewhere before…”

Harry flipped through the rest of the pages. He had weird, deja vu feeling when he looked at the diary, as if he had seen it somewhere before—except he couldn’t think of where he had seen it. “Nothing’s written inside.” He chewed on his lip, a weird, nostalgic feeling spreading in his heart. “Why would Lockhart carry this around?”

“I wonder.” Ron shrugged, picking it up and examining the book thoroughly, “Who even is this guy? Some famous fighter of dark creatures?”

“Or maybe a dark wizard himself? Or herself?” Harry mumbled.

“Well, either way, I suggest we put that diary back.” Hermione said firmly, “It does not belong to us, and Professor Lockhart will certainly not be happy if he finds out we’re looking into his personal belongings.”

Ron nodded and put the notebook back. Together the three of them cleaned up the classroom, put everything back in order, and left before the next bell rang. “He should give us another fifty points for cleaning up his mess,” Ron announced loudly as they walked into their Herbology class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a LONG time guys. I was writing new chapeters on the weekends and then I realized I have midterms coming this and next week and I was like holy shit I still don't know anything. Again thanks for everyone's support! I can't do this without you *^-^*


	12. Chapter 12

After the first disastrous DADA class, Lockhart stopped teaching altogether—from this point on, all they ever did in class was acting. Lockhart particularly loved having Harry act in his little skits, playing the role of vampires, werewolves, villagers…and countless others. The only consolation, probably, was that Lockhart was an easy marker after all—all Harry needed to do to get Os on every assignment was google flowery praises then put everything into his paper. Easy, fast, simple.

This was one of the rare days when Harry wasn’t asked to act. Instead, Lockhart was reading them poetry that, apparently, were composed by his fans. To be honest half the class weren’t even paying attention. Take Ron as an example—he’s been babbling on and on with Seamus about Quidditch for, like, half an hour now, and Lockhart didn’t even glance in their direction. Harry was just trying not to fall asleep.

In the end Harry still fell asleep. He was woken abruptly as the bell rang, and in the rush of people packing up and leaving the classroom, Harry heard Lockhart’s words: “…and for Monday, compose a poem about my journey in the Village of the Dead! Class dismissed.” He looked up and only caught a glimpse of the professor as his robe disappeared behind his office door.

“Is Professor Lockhart alright?” Hermione was stretching her neck, sounding agitated, “He’s not like himself today.”

“What? How do you know that??” Ron blinked, “He’s still bragging like usual.”

“Yea, but he didn’t announce his titles at the beginning of the class—neither did he announce the prize for the best poem!” Hermione frowned, “He must be really tired.”

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance. “Let’s go.” Harry suggested, as Ron mumbled “ _girls_ ” under his breath. Hermione glared at Ron, and rolled her eyes: “Yea, _boys_.”

That was when Harry heard the whisper.

“ _Come here…come closer…closer to me…_ ”

“What?” Harry jumped. The voice spoke with such a creepy hiss that it sent a shiver down Harry’s spine. The words were quiet and distant, and close and clear at the same time, as if they were somehow ingrained in Harry’s brain…

Hermione replied: “Oh, we were talking about going out to the Quidditch field…”

“No, not that.” Harry glanced around the room nervously, “Did you guys hear something?”

“Hear what?” Ron asked.

“That voice…” Harry paused, frowning, “Do you guys not hear that?”

Both Ron and Hermione shook their head. Hermione was looking at Harry with concern: “Are you okay Harry? You sure you got enough sleep last night?”

“ _Blood…let me rip you…_ ”

Harry turned around. “It’s…coming from Lockhart’s office?” He said, almost as a question. Was that Lockhart then? Wait, no, that didn’t sound right. As he continued staring, the tightly shut office door looked like a blackhole, ready to suck in his soul…

“Maybe Lockhart has some more pixies locked in his office.” Ron snorted.

“Oh, stop!” Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron again, then turned to Harry, “I don’t think we need to be worried then. I mean, Professor Lockhart is a master fighter. Whatever he has in there he must have control over.”

“Except pixies,” Ron whispered.

Hermione gave up. “We are just not getting over this, are we?”

“Maybe…but that sounds wrong…” Harry hesitated, still staring at the door, “It’s more like, from inside the walls or something…” Before he could say another word, a figure suddenly emerged from the office—through the door. Harry’s eyes widened: “ _Tom_?! What are you doing here?”

“What?” The figure turned around, looking disoriented, but when he noticed Harry he almost instantly straightened up, “Oh hi.” He blinked, “Nevermind me. I was just looking for stuff.” Tom sounded far away, Harry noticed, like he was talking but at the same time somewhere else.

“In Lockhart’s office?” Ron’s eyes lit up, “Are there more pixies in his office?”

Tom laughed, and suddenly he sounded more alive. “Only a bunch of pictures of him smiling like idiots.”

“What are you looking for?” Harry asked, curious. He hadn’t seen Tom a lot lately, especially after Tom was “officially” “became” a new ghost in the castle—a ghost of the _Slytherin_ house, of anything!

Tom made a face, “Oh it’s just something that, _attracts_ me.” He said, “I’ll be off now…” his words trailed off, leaving the last part of the sentence blank as his figure disappeared.

The trio stared at where Tom was standing a second ago. Hermione was frowning, looking extremely concerned. “He’s not telling the truth.” She concluded, “Everyone’s not acting right today.”

Harry shrugged. Not like he couldn’t tell—even though he hadn’t been with Tom-with-body for a long time, it didn’t take much for Harry to figure out that Tom’s keeping things away from the three of them. “He’s got his secrets.” He said. It’s literally the first time the two of them are…separated enough to keep anything away from each other. No need in trying to decode every little thing they want to keep to themselves, really.

“Maybe he’s just setting some mischief up in Lockhart’s office.” Ron stuck out his tongue, “Remember how Lockhart tried to undo Peeves’ trap and ended up melting the wall? I bet Lockhart’s gonna be so tired if more of those happen.” He laughed lightheartedly, “Tom’s probably best friends with Peeves already.”

Harry grinned at the comment. It does totally sound like something Tom would do—it’s been ten years and this is like the first time Harry found out how mischievous Tom was under that calm

Speaking of Peeves, Harry was reminded of another little detail he was curious about when he first discovered it and had forgotten ever since. If ghosts couldn’t do magic, and they couldn’t touch things that are a part of the material world, how do Peeves set up all the tricks and traps?

Another thing that falls into the “let's-figure-out-when-I-have-time” category, Harry thought distractedly.

Hermione suddenly sucked in a breath. “Harry.” She turned around and asked slowly, “The voice you heard, can it be Tom?” Her eyes lit up as things clicked in her brain, “I mean, he can travel in the walls, and the way he’s connected to you, maybe that’s why we couldn’t hear…”

“No.” Harry said before Hermione even finished her sentence, “Alright, Tom would _not_ roam around the castle saying stuff like ‘come to me’ and ’let me rip you.’ It’s not his voice either.”

Hermione’s eye widened. “What? You didn’t tell us that!” She asked, worried, “What else did it say—what do you think it is then? Did the voice stop?”

Harry paused. “Yea, I think it disappeared.”

Ron’s finally used up his patience. “Maybe it’s another ghost—sounds like something Bloody Baron would say. It could even be Peeves!” He said, “Guys, you are making such a big deal out of it. This is Hogwarts. We have all sorts of weird creatures here. Hearing things isn’t that uncommon. I really wouldn’t be surprised if Lockhart’s keeping a cage of talking pixies in his office.”

Hermione looked like she wanted to whack Ron in the head again, but she couldn’t disagree either. Ron had a point—most of those “alarming” incidences are not signals of life-threatening danger. More like signals of mischief that’s going to fall on your head. Of course, it’s never wrong to be careful, but if they’re all being _too_ careful…what’s the point of even coming to school?

“We should go now.” Harry was checking the time. “Students from the next class will probably be coming in soon. I don’t suppose you would want to be late for potions either.”

“I wouldn’t.” Ron agreed.

Before they left Harry turned and looked back at the office door again. It was still tightly shut, but for a flick second, Harry thought he saw a pair of huge golden eyes on the doors. He blinked and they disappeared.

Weird. He thought, before throwing the whole thing in the back of his mind.

***

When Tom “disappeared” he didn’t leave the classroom as he told Harry he would. Instead, he slid into the walls then floated back into Lockhart’s office again. He took a seat on a side shelf and leaned forwards.

The sand-brown-haired professor, or rather, the wizard who obviously didn’t know any real DADA magic, was sitting in front of his desk, madly writing on a notebook. Tom knew this notebook. He didn’t know what it was, how Lockhart got it, why the professor was obsessed with it…but he _could_ feel that strange, lethal attraction force—he wasn’t lying when he told Harry he was looking for something that _attracts_ him. Like the book was some sort of magnet that resonates with his frequency—it almost felt like the notebook should be a part of him, sometimes.

The book was strange, he also found out. The book _burns_.

As a ghost Tom shouldn’t be able to touch the notebook, as much as he wanted to steal and study this fascinating object ever since the first time he felt its existence. He had come and observed the book when Lockhart was away from his office multiple times, and even observed the book when Lockhart was using it, like he was doing right now. He reached out to the book once, and when he expected that his finger would dive into the solid like an illusion would, he felt the rough book-skin.

The first time he ever “felt” something with his own body.

It burned, literally. Orange flames burst out from Tom’s palm and burned his hand and his whole lower arm—and damn it _hurt_. Tom was surprised. The flames constantly clean out the “impure” parts of him, but never had they been so aggressive that they even broke through his veins! After the excruciating phase lessened to only sobbing pains, Tom tried to hold his still burning hand to the table, curious of how the flame would interact with objects. Both his hand and the flame crossed the solid. Then he tried to touch the notebook again.

He saw a burst of fire, next thing he knew, he was back in Harry’s mind-space again.

He never tried to touch the book again, but that was _alarming_. He knew that the flames only work up when he’s near a contamination source, like how it was when he was close to Quirrell, or in another word Voldemort last school year, and judging from that occurrence, this notebook was probably also some kind of dark-magic object, as evil or even more evil than Voldemort. _Extremely_ alarming. He knew he should maybe tell his discovery to someone—another professor, or even Harry—but a strange little voice in his head stopped him.

 _Isn’t this ironic?_ The voice asked. _Defence Against Dark Arts teacher using a dark magic artifact in his office._

 _It’s fun_. Another voice agreed. _Aren’t you curious?_

 _Let’s see what that idiot does with it,_ a third tiny voice tells him. _Don’t lie to me. I know you want to know what will happen…_

Sure he did. Tom would’ve searched the whole library and dug through any studies on such magic and artifacts had he been able to go back to Asgard or even Dr. Strange’s sanctum on his own. But he couldn’t, not without going through Harry—not that his family had time to deal with this little curiosity of his either. The workload of tasks Grandpa Odin was giving out to Papa and Uncle Thor was astonishingly high—as if he wants to get things over with and retire early—then last he heard both Uncle Stephen and Dad got into trouble with terrorist groups…So he simply stayed and watched. And oh it was fascinating. Just _look_.

As Lockhart finished his long paragraph—of what topic, Tom was not at all interested in—the words slowly disappeared. The wizard stared at the pages intensely, nervously, until suddenly, on the blank page words began to appear. One by one, as if someone was remotely writing them on the paper. Tom couldn’t read the response—not that he couldn’t read from far, or he didn’t understand the language, but he could only see shapes of nonsense on the sheet. From his past experiences Tom has concluded that, most probably, the responses on the book is only open to whoever writes on it.

Tom hummed, placing his chin on his hands. Now, doesn’t that sound like some kind of _contrast with the devil_ thing in shows and movies? He wondered what kind of devil dwells in the book—surely it’s a devil. What else could suck life out of a wizard like this book is doing to Lockhart?

As Tom was thinking absentmindedly Lockhart suddenly stood up and paced in the room, breathing hard. His face was sickly flushed, like he was angry, or experiencing some kind of stroke. It was…excitement, Tom noticed, and his interest perked up. After another ten seconds of that mad, mindless paces Lockhart sat down on his chair again. Tom looked over his shoulder and saw the wizard write down a shaky “ _yes_ ” on the page.

 _Oh, now it really_ _is_ _turning into a contrast_. Tom mused, leaning back against the wall again. He loved reading books and watching shows about sucking the soul and life out of living creatures—well, maybe not the healthiest thing for a teenage boy to be interested in, but he couldn’t be more excited when something of this sort actually happens right in front of him. He continued watching, but Lockhart’s motions simply stopped. He sat motionless in the chair, staring at the notebook for a response, but none showed up.

The wizard stayed in the same pose for a long time, so long that Tom yawned and decided he might as well come back later. There still was a time limit as to how long he could stay outside without re-connecting with Harry, and he’s almost approaching that number now. It would be a wise time to take a break now that the situation here’s obviously resulted in a stalemate…

Before he could leave, however, Lockhart moved. He looked up from the notebook, gazing into a distant point. Tom froze. There was a mirror on the other side of the table, meaning that he could clearly see Lockhart’s face without having to move over, and for a split second Tom thought Lockhart was grinning menacingly. He blinked and looked at Lockhart again, just to make sure.

The eyes were red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! How do you think of this chapter? Is it too much of a stretch lol?
> 
> Expect the next update in approx. a week :3


	13. Chapter 13

_“Why did he lock me up?” The strange woman with antlers stared at a point in the void and asked softly, her face and whole figure twisting like mist, “Sweetie, why did he lock me up?”_

_Harry couldn’t speak. He had no control over where this whole thing was going—of course he didn’t, he was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming. See, that was the strange thing about this dream, how he still couldn’t wake himself up even though he knew it was a dream…_

_A huge wolf appeared. It snared in Harry’s direction, red eyes glowing, before turning around and howling at the moon. Was the moon there? Harry could swear it wasn’t there a second ago._

_“Look at what they did to you.” The woman said, voice tainted with craze, “Soon we’ll take revenge…”_

_The image suddenly shifted. The misty lady was gone. The wolf was gone as well. Harry heard a hiss, then he looked up, unable to control his own motion. In the complete darkness of his surrounding, there were two golden eyes._

Harry woke up with a jolt, panting hard. He reached over to his phone on his night stand, then fell back onto his pillows when he realized it was not even six yet. It took him a minute to re-establish his normal breathing patterns, before he sat up and grabbed his phone again.

JARVIS still had control over the system, which means that the Mandarin thing still wasn’t over yet, which means that Harry couldn’t use his phone for basically anything if he didn’t want to ruin the plan Tony and JARVIS were making. A few days ago, Tony ran into some massive problem with a terrorist organization called the Mandarin, ending their first encounter with a couple blown mansions and Iron Man himself running wild in the middle of nowhere. He connected with JARVIS but thought it best for the terrorists to believe him dead, before quickly starting investigating and researching information about the attackers—and this virus called the Extremis. It was JARVIS who suggested using Harry’s devices as a connection point in the data transmission—by simply being at Hogwarts, Harry’s phone is literally unhackable by any machine not specifically built to withstand disruption of magic and spells. 

This process was taking a bit longer than Harry expected though, probably due to the recent crazes with SHIELD, Asgard, and everything.  _Not that the world had ever been sane. For even one single day._  Harry thought as he set the phone back down on the table, then promptly got out of bed—he couldn’t possibly go back to sleep again after that strange dream. He put on his robe and placed his hand on the cold, clear window for a minute, feeling the October chills. 

Harry had almost learned to ignore the dreams after having them almost every night for a month. Most of the time, he just found himself surrounded by mist and darkness, but in some occasions he would hear a female voice talking, or a wolf howling, or even see a misty figure with deer antlers, like he just did. He’s been trying to figure out what kind of creature that lady and wolf were, or what repeated dreams could mean…oh well, at least he learned to not trust Professor Trelawney’s speculations. He definitely did not, and will never, die because he was stupid enough to swallow a snake raw.

He made sure he was quiet enough as he finished his morning routines and stepped out of the dorm, leaving his friends snorting and soundly asleep in their beds. Tom was with him, which honestly was a rare occurrence by now, and was resting as well. Over the past few months Harry had paid special attention to learning to feel, or communicate with the energy surrounding him to determine whether his brother was nearby, and his efforts were finally paying off. At least now he could be certain when Tom was with him and when Tom was not.

The Fat Lady muttered something when Harry pushed open the portrait-door. He paused in the doorway, then decided that he should bring the cupcakes he saved with him and check out the owlery. Now that Dreki couldn’t go to class with Harry any more, and since Harry strictly ordered Dreki to stay away from the forbidden forest unless accompanied by someone trustworthy, Dreki’s favourite hiding place had become the owlery. She seemed to believe that she could make friends with the owls simply because they both have wings…let’s just say, that’s usually  _not_  the case.

He saw Professor Lockhart as he walked through the hallway, and was completely ready to hide, or if he got caught, explain why he was up this early in the morning. But Lockhart didn’t see him and disappeared behind another door, so Harry continued walking in the silent castle. Ms. Norris appeared around the corner and snarled when Harry almost stepped on her tail. He watched her run away, hesitated, then decided that going to the owlery early in the morning shouldn’t break any rule, and even if she called Filch he wouldn’t possibly be punished for no reason.

A thing layer of frost covered the staircase leading to the higher landings, squeaking as Harry stepped onto them. He came to the highest landing, and sucked in the early morning air as he glanced around the owl stands and cages. Except, there were no owls.

 _Oh of course she’s doing that again_. “Dreki.” He called, “Cupcakes?”

The air in front of him rippled, like how the reflection in a lake would ripple when someone throws a stone at it. But the illusions didn’t break down—as if the little dragon-not-dragon was hesitating between the two choices. Harry sighed and waved the cupcake around again: “You really don’t want cupcakes?”

Long pause, then the image of the owlery suddenly broke like glass, and before Harry knew it the cupcake he was holding was gone. He looked down at his hand and the cupcake holder and chuckled—surprised when he heard another person laughing alongside.

Harry looked up. “Draco?” His eyes lit up, “Morning! Are you usually up this early?” He asked, Dreki perching on his shoulder and happily flapping her little wings.

“Yea, to get my mom’s package. It makes more of a mess if I get them at the breakfast table. That’s Bubble, my mom’s owl.” Draco explained, showing Harry a half-opened box, then pointing at an eagle owl perched on one of the stands next to him. He looked exactly like Draco’s owl, except larger in size and probably older. Harry just noticed that most of the owl stands were empty and all the owls were either perched on the windowsill or hiding in the corners—looks like Dreki scared her “friends” away again. He glanced back and narrowed his eyes.

“Let me guess, candies?” Harry asked, focusing on the box.

Dreki flew over, landed on Draco’s shoulder and fished out a huge piece of chocolate cookie, then set it down on a shelf. “Oh wait!” Harry exclaimed, “So  _this_  is where you got all your snacks!”

“Where else did you think I could get them?” Draco shrugged, “Even house elves aren’t as good at baking as Mom is.”

Harry had to agree. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak he heard the whisper again.

“ _…a sssacrificssse for me…oooh…_ ”

“It’s that voice.” Harry froze dead in his track and whispered. Draco looked around, confused. “What voice?” He asked.

“Shh.” Harry shushed. He looked around, trying to identify where the sound had come from. It was faint, further away compared to the time he heard the voice in Lockhart’s office. 

“ _Issss it fun? Let me chassssssse you…rip you apart…_ ” The voice raised in the end of the sentence, then suddenly broke into a loud hiss, “ _Sssssssss—_ ”

Harry stumbled backward, as if hit in the face by something. Tom startled awake and the next second, a faint, half-transparent figure appeared in front of Harry: “For the love of—what is going on?!” He gasped, as if he was able to hear the voice as well. His eyes widened, and he turned and ran towards a wall, disappearing behind the solid. Harry could tell he was going towards the direction of the sound, and he felt slightly less anxious.

Draco looked at them, both alarmed and nervous, but before he could say anything Harry shushed again: “Shh.” He was trying to catch the remnants of the voice, but couldn’t find any.

There was only silence remaining. Dreki purred, flapping her wings as the morning sun jumped up and shone rays of warm light down onto the floor.

“It’s gone.” Harry whispered, “The voice disappeared.”  _Did Tom catch whoever was doing it?_

“What did you hear?” Draco asked nervously, “It could be someone trying to warn you…”

“No, I think it’s going to kil—” Harry paused. He remembered something. “Dobby.” He frowned, “No, that’s definitely not his voice. But he could’ve be warning  _me_  about  _that_  though. If that’s the case he has to know what this weird voice is—if only we could find him right now—”

“Dobby?” Draco asked, sounding strangled, “What’s with Dobby?”

“Did I not tell you?” Harry was surprised, “Oh well. I’ve asked everyone about it and apparently I somehow skipped you.” He told Draco the whole incidence with Dobby warning him about not returning to Hogwarts and a dangerous school year, “He must know something if he was already expecting danger to fall upon me before this school year even started.”

Draco was silent for a minute, and then—“I have a house elf called Dobby.” He said slowly, “Who looks exactly like how you described.“

Harry deadpanned. “You  _what_.“

They stared at each other for an entire minute, before Draco spoke up again. “Dobby was working in the Hogwarts kitchen last year, because he just was disobedient…and he annoyed Dad so much.” He said, “I’m sorry—I didn’t know why he would…”

“It’s all fine. Can you call him up and ask him what the hell he was trying to warn me about?” Harry asked anxiously.

Draco shook his head. “He was brought back to the mansion for the summer, then he was found trespassing into Dad’s studies.” He explained, “Dad locked him up. I’ll have to ask if Dad could send him over.”

Before Harry could say anything, they heard a loud, piercing scream.  His mouth snapped shut. Tom rose up from the floor, his face straight and serious. He pointed out of the owlery, “Guys, you should definitely see that.”

Harry and Draco exchanged a glance, then followed Tom out of the owlery and down the west tower. They reached the Great Hall, then both stopped dead in their track.

There were already groups of people gathered around the door, muttering and murmuring and shuffling nervously. Harry looked up at the door, saw the letters written in red, blood-like paint, and breathed out. “Damn.” He muttered.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

BEWARE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hesitant to include the first part...feel like that's a bit of a stretch but then in the end i decided whatever lol. I don't even know where this will take me, but we will see how the story plays out!


	14. Chapter 14

There had been talks about the Chamber, but no one was taking it seriously. No one died, no on was harmed—Professor McGonagall made sure of that the minute the incidence happened, summoning everyone to gather in the great hall. The only thing that was found missing was Filch’s cat, which, well, pretty much no one cared about. Alright. Filch was mad. No one else was—there were even talks of what an awesome theme setup for Halloween it was.

“If they even manage to turn Ms. Norris into a ghost and, oh I don’t know, throw her out during the festival, that would make the _mischief of the year_.” Seamus announced loudly when Neville and Dean were discussing their Halloween costumes and the decorations for the Great Hall. He nudged Harry a bit, who was reading, or pretending to read a book. “You know?We could definitely use some creativity for the feast.”

Harry just looked at him blankly. “I suppose.” He said, voice hollow, not knowing what else he could reply to his too-excited roommate.

Equally worried was all Harry’s friends, or namely those who knew about the weird voice he was hearing. Ron had gone from claiming it was nothing to hear voices in the wizardry world to nervously looming over Harry every time Harry even moves a muscle, then Hermione spent endless hours in the library trying to dig up what could possibly in the walls of Hogwarts. She was extremely disappointed when nothing of the sort was mentioned in _Hogwarts: A History_. “I could swear I have read about the Chamber of Secrets before.” She said, storming into her dorm to find more books, leaving the boys stunned in the common room, “There has to be something...”

It was Draco who finally gave them some answers. “It’s a myth widely-spread among the Slytherins.” He mentioned to the Gryffindors during one of their study sessions, “Or rather, children of the Slytherin families. It’s usually stories for kids.”

“Harry was hearing voices then this line just appeared out of nowhere. There has to be a correlation.” Hermione stated as-a-matter-of-factly, “The Chamber has to be real.”

“Can you just tell us the story please?” Harry added.

Draco shrugged. “Fine, if you so insist.” He said, then briefly summarized the myth for the Gryffindors, “It is rumoured that before Slytherin left Hogwarts after a massive disagreement between the founders, he created and sealed a chamber in the castle, and inside is a powerful creature. When the chamber is opened, the creature will wake up and become the watcher of the castle, cleansing it of its blemishes.”

“Blemish?” Ron looked up from his essay.

“People of a danger to the school. Mud-blood.” Draco said with a casual tone, then corrected himself as he realized that term was probably inappropriate, “Muggle-born wizards and witches.”

“Oh.” Hermione said.

There was this awkward silence in the study room, which Harry was sure Draco did not notice at all. Ron looked like he wanted to make some very angry remark, but Hermione stopped him by stepping on his foot and hissing a loud “go back to your essay.” Harry blinked and started: “So now that the chamber has been opened and this whatever creature has been released, it’s going to start killing muggle-born students?”

Draco just _looked_ at him. “I still think someone just made up the line as a joke.” He said, “And that we found it right after the voice was a coincidence. Speaking of which, shouldn’t we be focusing more on what that voice you heard was? _That_ could be dangerous.”

“The voice could’ve come from the monster.” Hermione pointed out. “I mean, think about it. Slytherin’s favourite animal? Snakes. Harry could talk to snakes. Maybe the voice has been in our ears all along but Harry’s the only one who could catch it because he actually understands what is being said—even if it’s not snakes, Harry has All Speak and could understand the language of any intelligent animal.”

“Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago." Draco countered, "Magical creatures don’t have lifespans of over a thousand years. Even the longest living ones decease after eight to nine hundred years—and they would have to live without eating or drinking for the past thousand years. The monster would have died long ago.” He said, then thoughtfully added while glancing at Harry, “Aliens and creatures that literally walk out of legends don’t count, of course.”

“But if the creature doesn’t age, that’s a different story, right? What if it is under, under that...” Hermione stumbled, “Crypo…gene...”

“Cryogenic Sleep?” Harry asked, “Like Hypersleep?”

“Right! That’s the word.” Hermione nodded fiercely, “If hypersleep can theoretically prevent a human from aging and allowing them to survive out of their lifespan, there’s nothing that stops Slytherin from performing the same trick on a magical creature. Then the whole chamber is just a hypersleep pod and when it opens…”

“What is a cryogenic sleep?” Draco asked.

“It’s when you put a creature under freezing temperature—while preventing frosting—so cold that their metabolism slow down to a point they barely age at all. So they could be waken up after a couple decades and still be alive and look the same.” Hermione explained, “It’s a concept that could be used for deep space travel, you know, since it takes years for spaceships with our current technology to travel to another planet. All we need is a subzero temperature…”

Draco slowly nodded, trying to digest the information that was obviously out of the scope of any wizardry experience. “Who would open the Chamber then?” He asked again, “If none of the professors said anything…”

“Oh I’m sure there are just about a million Slytherins that would gladly release whatever thing Salazar Slytherin himself have hidden.” Ron couldn’t contain himself from joining the conversation, “I never realized that all the pure blood bullshit passed down from him!”

Draco glanced at him. “Pure bloods tend to have a higher magic capability. It’s a _fact_ , Weasley—grow up.” Then he paused before adding, “And that’s not why Slytherin disliked muggle-born students either.”

Before Ron could talk back, Draco cut off the topic there, “If there is a chamber, then whoever opens it has to know its location, then has to get pass whatever Salazar Slytherin has set in place in order to seal the Chamber thousands of years ago. And let’s be honest, if this is some common knowledge amongst the Slytherins, we would’ve opened the chamber and ‘cleanse’ the castle ages ago.”

“The person might’ve just found out how to open the chamber.” Hermione said, “Or they might have thought it’s a myth and did it for fun, except they accidentally opened the real chamber and now we’ve got a problem.”

“I could ask my father.” Draco shrugged, then as if suddenly remembering something, he turned to Harry: “Oh, and the Dobby situation…Dad wouldn’t let him come to Hogwarts, but he did question Dobby and Dobby wouldn’t say anything. He kept screaming and banging his head and talking about some ‘revived soul’ then Dad had to order him to stop…” He paused before adding, “I don’t know. I could sense my dad’s not telling me a lot of things, but he probably would explain to your father if he’s asked?”

“Right. Except my dad’s caught up in some terrorist situation in the States and my papa’s not coming back to earth soon.” Harry scratched his neck, knowing that it would almost be impossible to press for more information from Lucius Malfoy if he wouldn’t even give them to his son, “That’s a dead end for us right now.”

“Wait, Dobby is your house elf?” Ron yelled, jumping out of his seat, “Merlin’s beard! Ha! We caught you, Malfoy! I knew someone instructed it to mess with Harry—”

Draco looked shocked by Ron’s assumption. “Is that _thing_ on your neck a _decoration_? Why would I do something like that in the first place? Out of all Gryffindor Harry is literally the most bearable one.” He rolled his eyes, “Then, if I actually did do it, why would I ever decide to tell you Dobby is my house elf? Do I look that stupid?”

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t—”

“Alright.” Hermione decided to steer the topic away, “Let’s assume someone did open the chamber.”

“The professors will take care of that.” Ron said.

Hermione sighed. “Right. Except that’s not the point I was trying to make.” She explained, “Think about it. The person asked us to beware. That’s like a warning, or even a threat, something is going to happen.”

All three boys stared at her blankly.

“Guys, _think_.” Hermione said impatiently, “Why would the person write down a blood red message in the first place? In the most obvious place ever in the entire castle?”

Harry slowly blinked. “Wait, I think I get it.” He glanced around the room, “The person wouldn’t be satisfied with everyone else thinking his heroic—or whatever—act is a joke. Assuming that they could control the monster inside the chamber, they would act soon. Do something dramatic. They would put the act on display.”

“The simple fact that the guy left a message says a lot about his personality.” Hermione agreed, “He wants an audience. He wants us to be afraid. He wants fear and chaos. He definitely doesn’t want his doing to go away unrecognized.” She took a dramatic pause, “But we aren’t giving him the attention.”

Ron was looking around, confused. Draco looked thoughtful: “So he’ll do something more memorable to catch our attention? An actual attack?”

“Ugh.” Harry groaned. “Such a typical comic book villain persona.” He sighed, “Attention seeker. I could swear he would be the kind of guy that is so proud about his evil plans that he would talk about it non-stop for ten minutes during the final battle. Or when someone catches him.”

“So his first attack didn’t bring about anything because no one cared.” Ron wrinkled his nose, “Why Ms. Norris though?”

“I heard something about sacrifice.” Harry pointed out, “Maybe the cat is a sacrifice to something.”

“Right.” Hermione agreed, “I’ll look into cat culture…”

Draco blinked. “Wait, slow down. You are saying that Slytherin’s monster would want a cat as a sacrifice.” He said flatly, “How could this _possibly_ make sense??”

“Well, if you look into Egyptian myth, you would know that Mafdet, a cat head lady deity, protects the Pharaoh's chambers against snakes and evil.” Hermione said, “Ms. Norris is female, and a feline. And that's just the example I have on the top of my head, surely there are more if we dig deeper. Totally a possibility.” She paused, then turned to Harry, “Harry, where did Tom go?”

Harry blinked. “Tom? Er, to be honest, I don’t know.” He shrugged, “Probably enjoying some time on his own. Last time I asked it seemed that he was interested in a ghost called Myrtle…”

“Moaning Myrtle?” Hermione literally screeched. “ _The_ Moaning Myrtle?!”

“Who’s that?” Ron asked.

“She haunts one of the toilets in the girls’ bathroom on the first floor.” Hermione took a deep breath.

“A _toilet_?”

“Oh I’ve heard of her. She died fifty or so years ago and floods the first floor once in a while.” Draco commented, “Pansy complained about it almost every other day.”

“Yea right, most of the girls would choose to never set their foot in that bathroom unless necessary. It’s been out of order all year anyways because the Moaning Myrtle keeps having tantrums. I thought she was having mental issues and tried to talk to her one day and she just _flooded_ the entire place. Just imagine how my robe turned out.” Hermione shook her head, still shocked, “I can’t believe _Tom_ would be interested in _her_.” She paused, “Wait, are they _dating_?! What the heck—Tom would have to go into that damned bathroom to meet her.”

“Er, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s _that_ kind of interest we’re talking about here…but no comments.” Harry found the thought equally disturbing, but decided to not play judge. “I could ask him to talk to the ghosts and see if they know anything about the Chamber.” Harry paused, “Actually, I think he hears the voice as well, like when I heard it in the owlery Tom seemed to hear something as well. Except he doesn’t talk about it and I never asked.”

“Right. Please do.” Hermione sighed. “One of the ghosts must have been old enough to know something about the Chamber. Weren’t the Grey Lady and Bloody Baron from the era of the founders?”

“I’m pretty sure the Grey Lady was a direct relative to Rowena Ravenclaw.” Draco added thoughtfully, “Except she doesn’t talk to students. Maybe Tom would have some success since he’s posing as a ghost?”

“We still don’t have any clue as to what we’re trying to find though. What if the Chamber is a myth?” Ron asked.

“Well.” Harry answered, “In that case, we wait, and we beware.” He shrugged, “Never does your harm to be too careful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to dive right into Halloween and action EXCEPT I reread the Chamber of Secret and realized that having Draco fully on their team would just make everything a hell too easy lol. So I have to change things up a bit, like the part where not even Slytherins fully understand what the chamber is about and stuff. 
> 
> And honestly, I think Salazar Slytherin wouldn't really be that...crazy. Keeping a monster to attack Muggle-born students just because he thought they weren't...worthy? Ummm...I might bring this up later lol. I made up this entire story about how a Muggle-born student at his era betrayed the school before the placement of all the powerful spells which led to the witch-and-wizard-haters killing a lot of the early students, which then led Salazar Slytherin to take extreme measure to prevent such an incident from happening again. Except I couldn't put it in the story cuz that wouldn't make sense for the characters to talk extensively about this. Either way I guess...


	15. Chapter 15

“Are you seriously suggesting that we should go and attend a dead man, let me repeat that, a _dead man_ ’s celebration of his _day of death_ , on a _Halloween night_?” Harry shook his head, “Sounds just like a perfect recipe for trouble.”

“Ghosts love gossiping.” Tom shrugged, “That’s literally _all_ they do after, you know, they die. If you want a piece of ancient history that no one alive has knowledge of, ghosts are your perfect choices. Perfectly legit.” He paused, “You don’t just get opportunities like this either, where hundreds of them from all around show up in one place.”

“I think it would work, Harry!” Hermione sides with Tom this round, “I’m sure some of them would be able to tell us something about the creature in the chamber—or whether it even exists—if we ask the right question.” She almost hissed, “Come on, Harry, we’ve reached a dead end and this could actually give us something! As far as we know right now the chamber could be as real as Hogwarts itself, and we still don’t know _what_ could be in there.” She wrinkled her nose, “I bet we can find Grey Lady here—”

That was true. They had searched in all the books they seemed to be able to find, but they still couldn’t figure out if the chamber is a myth or a real place in the castle. Even Draco and Blaise barely helped there. As far as the fellow Slytherins were concerned, the story is just as real as the story of the Deathly Hallows—nothing more than a myth. But Lucius Malfoy’s reply to Draco asking him about the chamber only made the whole situation more suspicious. He told Draco to “not interfere with the danger of the situation” and “keep quiet.” Not a great sign—definitely something fishy.

Asking the staffs seemed like a dumb idea…just imagine how suspicious they would look, poking around such a subject. The group turned their attention to the ghosts next, and sure enough, they got some interesting result. Professor Binns was strangely outrageous when they brought up the topic, as if he was concerned with something related to the chamber’s existence. The Bloody Baron refused to answer the question, and while Headless Nick seemed to have no idea what was going on either, he mentioned that he had heard the Grey Lady stressing over the chamber and the message. Hermione had been obsessed with finding the Grey Lady and asking her about the subject ever since, but so far they have had no luck.

But attending a party full of ghosts—literal ghosts—while pretending to be one of them? On a Halloween night? No, no, no, it’s a terrible idea. It’s like entering the world of Hel when you’re still alive...

Wait, that actually sounds interesting.

Harry tried to remind himself again that it’s not worth it to miss the Halloween party…but he finally agreed when he felt Hermione had been staring at him too determinedly for too long: “Alright, I guess. It better be worth it...” He turned to Tom again, “And Tom? Please come down here and explain the hundred other things you’re still not telling us?”

“I just did!” Tom jumped down, or more precisely, floated down, “I’m after Lockhart’s goddamn notebook, which has nothing to do with the potential…murderer in the school.”

“Right.” Harry nodded, narrowing his eyes, “Tell me why you are after a piece of, as you have described it, dark and dangerous object that belongs to a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher again?”

“Now _you_ are patronizing _me_.” Tom rolled his eyes, “This is off topic.”

“No, we are talking about that, because it is _important_. It’s a piece of dangerous artifact that _harms souls_.” Harry crossed his arms, “Guess what you are. A _soul_.”

Ron piped up. “If you think on the bright side, since Lockhart has it, at least Professor Dumbledore would somewhat know that.”

“How much _do_ you trust Lockhart?” Harry deadpanned. “Doesn’t change the fact—”

“Please.” Tom cut him off, “Seriously. Since when do _you_ back away from a curious but dangerous subject?”

“But—”

“ _Do you still remember how you woke me up in the very first place?_ ”

“I was _three_.” At the time he had sneaked into the Asgardian vault and, of course, had no adults accompanying him. He literally messed around with all the treasures Grandpa Odin kept in there, before climbing onto the goblet holding the Eternal Flames and bravely catching a bit of fire in his hands…but Harry got Tom’s point. “I just won’t be able to stop you, would I.”

Tom gave him a playful smirk before shimmering away—and somewhere inside him, Harry could feel his brother settling down again. He glanced around his friends and decided to settle the topic for later. “Next time you do something like that, remember to tell someone first—so, we’re off to, er, Nick’s deathday party?”

Hermione nodded to confirm, before adding quietly a second later: “It’s not like we’re missing out too much either—a ghost’s celebration! How many people alive would have the fortune to attend one of these events? It’ll be really fascinating. Even better than the feast!”

“Now _that_ is why you _really_ agreed to this.” Harry raised an eyebrow—he could tell she blushed again, even with her half-faced mask on. “Speaking of which...this is the second time, Hermione! You have missed two Halloween feasts in a row!”

Hermione made a face. “I’m going to go change first.” She said, before joyfully jogging off towards the direction of the girl’s dorm. Harry looked down and tugged at his own costume and nodded in agreement. “Good point. I need to get rid of the cape before the party too. I tripped over myself _so much_ today. Snape must’ve thought I am incompetent or something.”

 _As if he doesn’t already._ Tom muttered, before asking: _Are you not going to ask Draco to come with you?_

 _Don’t think he would want to miss out the feast—again. Not everyone’s like Hermione, you know._ Harry thought _, but yea, might as well._

“Are you wearing your parents’ cape?” Ron asked curiously, “The one they wore last year?”

“I wouldn’t have the tripping issue if I am.” Harry shrugged, “The real ones are enchanted to never fail their master. Come on, we have a party to catch.”

Tom pointed them to the dungeon after the trio all changed out of their costumes. Harry took a detour to the Great Hall to check on Draco, but when he couldn’t find the Slytherin the trio decided to proceed to their original plans. The corridor Tom led them into was lit with long, thin, and ominous-looking candles, and as soon as Harry entered the doorway he felt a chill running down his spine. He had never been at this part of the castle before, and it was damn creepy.

“While you’re all at it,” Tom surfaced behind Harry as the latter cloaked all three of them with glamour—not that they could just turn into ghosts, but some disguise should be enough, “Shout out to me when you see Myrtle, will you? The Moaning Myrtle. She’s been avoiding me ever since I first introduced myself to her.” He made a face, “She literally just vanishes every time I try to talk to her.”

“Why would she be avoiding you?” Ron asked, staring at his now pearly white hands like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“That’s exactly why I agree to come to the party in the first place. She can’t possibly miss Nick’s deathday party. Every single ghost that reside in Hogwarts is going to show up.” Tom said and stopped at the entrance, just as Harry warned Ron, “Don’t touch anything, or anyone, the spell is only an illusion and doesn’t allow you to phase in and out of existence. And don’t wander off too far from me—it only works within a certain radius…”

A whitish ghost glided towards them, stopping Harry mid-sentence. It’s Headless Nick, Harry recognized, Gryffindor’s house ghost. But he looked different. There’s a weird tint of rusty red colour to the normally pearl white body of his. And he looked...a lot sadder. “Nick.” Tom greeted, sounding so genuinely sincere that for a second Harry wondered if Tom actually enjoyed being a ghost and attending deathday parties, “You look awesome tonight.”

“Tom...” The ghost moaned, “Mr. Riddle...so glad you came...come on in...” He looked at Harry’s trio and bowed, “Ah, guests...from far away...”

Harry shivered again. Saying _Hi_ to Nick in the Great Hall or the Gryffindor common room was one thing. Hearing Nick greet you with this moping tone was an entirely different thing. Now Harry’s starting to question his own sanity—why in Valhalla did he agree to come here again?

“It’s an honor—” Hermione began, but Nick wasn’t really paying attention to them anymore. The ghost simply gestured them towards the entrance.

“It’s a pleasure...a pleasure...come, my friends...”

Ron was breathing hard beside Harry. Harry glanced to check on his friends—Tom was completely unfazed, and Hermione...oh Hermione. She was looking around like she just discovered America. Nothing can stop her curiosity and pursuit of knowledge, even a room packed with ghosts.

He stepped inside, awed at the view of bazillion white ghosts in the barely lit room. Literally, the only sources of light was a few small candles on the sides of the walls...and all the glowing ghosts dancing on the dusted dance floor. Then something else because evident—the damn awful music. Harry squinted and traced the noise to a band that was playing on the raised platform. He shivered again as the whatever instrument made another screechy note.

“This is terrible.” Ron whispered, “If this is what the life of a ghost is like, I would rather die.”

Tom shrugged, floating beside them: “Once you choose to become a ghost, though, you can’t choose to go back.”

Hermione tugged at them both. “We should check out the food bar.” She whispered, pointing at the groups of ghosts lingering and talking to each other around the table.

Ron agreed, eager for something good. The four of them approached the long table, and as soon as Harry saw what was offered on the table, he choked on his own breath.

On the glaringly clean silver plates were foods. Rotten foods. Cakes, fish, watermelon with mould, green cheese...and they had this awful smell that Harry was sure would attract a million flies had the room not been this freezingly cold. Harry watched as a couple of ghosts surrounding the table walked through the table through the food, with mouth wide opened as if that would help them tasting anything. One of the ghosts even commented that the icing on the cake was wonderful, while the other ones agreed in what sounds like a whine.

“I would rather _die_ ,” Ron repeated, voice shaking.

Harry swallowed. “Is this seriously how ghosts usually eat? Like, you guys would just gather in the hall every night and have a— _snack_ like this?” He turned to Tom and asked incredulously, refusing to even imagine the scene. Nick, and Bloody Baron, and Peeves, and Moaning Myrtle, and the Grey Lady, and even Professor Binns, sitting down like they’re having the Last Supper, opening their mouths wide to taste the flavor of a piece of rotten fish…while all the students literally sit above their head.

Oh god. Now Harry couldn’t wipe the image off his brain. _Perfect_.

Tom looked aghast. “No!” He hissed, “I have no idea what this abomination is—ghosts don’t normally eat!”

“Who prepared this food?” Ron asked, “Ghosts can’t touch anything...why make them all rotten??”

Harry had to try really hard to stop himself from imagining the house elves in the kitchen saving bits and pieces of leftover everyday and set them aside in a special chamber to make them rot for the ghosts...

“I think the food is rotten to give a stronger flavour.” Hermione said, leaning in and curiously peering at a bowl of grey-ish goo.

Harry closed his eyes for a brief second before opening them again, swaying the focus in another direction:” Alright, I think we should get into what we really came here for—” He winced at another bolt of music, turning around to complain: “Oh for Christ’s sake. I expected ghosts that have survived through the baroque or classical era to at least have better tastes in music than this.”

Tom sighed: “Not that I was expecting anything either…”

“Come on—just let’s get this over with,”Harry said, cutting him off. _And hopefully we actually find something useful._

—Why did he agree to come here again?

The group abandoned the food bar thereafter and started targeting ghosts who didn’t look like they were ready to kill themselves. Harry played the role of a recently-dead tourist-ghost, using the line in red paint outside the Great Hall as an excuse for his curiosity and asking everyone if it was simply something someone made up for Halloween or if it meant something else. Not that most of the ghosts were helpful anyways—many of them seemed completely immersed in their own little world, either ignoring Harry or randomly talking about subjects with no correlation to the question Harry asked. Tom was still keeping a keen eye out for the Moaning Myrtle, who by far was nowhere to be seen.

By the time the clock struck eight, they have had a few history lessons, a few mythology lessons, and a few random facts about the “scary” and “terrifying” creature in the chamber of the secret. Then they finally found someone—some ghost—who was competent enough to say a coherent sentence that is related to the question.

“Oh.” The ghost lady who looked like she’s in her twenties frowned at Harry’s question and huffed, “The chamber? That is a cruel joke to make. Last time it opened, someone _died_.”

Harry choked on his own breath—wow. That was a lot more than what he was expecting. Hermione quickly pressed on with another question: “Ms—Lady, can you tell us more about the chamber? How is—how is no one concerned if the chamber had killed someone before?”

The ghost lady shrugged. “There were a couple of attacks when I was in my seventh year—a girl called Warren died. The Ministry even talked about closing down the school.” She said with a complete unanimated tone, as if the information bomb she just dropped was _nothing_ , then seeming to get distracted by Nick floating up to the stage, “Ah, it’s almost time for Nick’s speech—”

“Um, may I ask, when did you die?” Hermione asked, trying to narrow down the time when the chamber last opened.

The lady seemed offended. “Asking a ghost’s deathday is as rude as asking a lady’s age.” She glared at them and chimed coldly, “Now, if you’ll all excuse me.”

As the ghost lady floated away Hermione turned around to face Harry, Ron, and a very distracted Tom. They all stared at each other, not knowing if they should be happy that they were finally making progress in their epic search, or shocked that _wait what tf the chamber is real and someone in the past had died when it opened so what is going on right now there is actually a monster—_

Ron finally broke the silence, “At least we know where we’re going next.”

“We’ll need to find the record of a girl called Warren who died while she’s enrolled in school.” Hermione summarized, “It shouldn’t be too hard.” She paused, “Since she mentioned Ministry of Magic, it has to be some time after 1707…”

“Not too easy either.” Harry mumbled, “I doubt Hogwarts has an archive for records like that.” He watched the raised platform as the orchestra ghosts all stood up and the music stopped, and everyone else in the room fell silent. Now that the awful orchestra stopped, Harry found that the silence was even worse.

That’s when the sound came, again.

“ _Let me—let me—_ ”

“Shit.” Harry burst out loud. Like, loud enough for half the room to hear his word. Half a dozen ghosts turned around to look at him, and Harry could only give back an awkward smile. As the ghosts turned their attention back to Nick on the stage, he turned to his friends: “It’s the voice, whatever it is, I think it’s activated again!”

“What, now?” Ron’s eyes widened.

“ _I smell blood—I smell blood…_ ”

“It’s smelling blood, something bad is going to happen,” Harry said, heartbeat racing as he frantically scanned across the room. “It’s close, it’s really close to us—Tom?” He asked urgently, “Tom, do you hear it? Tom? Hello?” Harry asked again when Tom didn’t respond.

“What?” Tom snapped out of this trance. “What—oh.” His eyes widened.

“ _I see—I can see into—into you—_ ”

“ _It’s right above us_ ,” Tom whispered, looking up to the ceiling.

Harry didn’t even hesitate to start running out of the room, “ _Come on, we might be able to find it before it disappears_ —”

“Wait, Harry!” Hermione yelled, but Harry wasn’t listening to her anymore. The sound of his footsteps were very obvious as his shoes clattered against the cold stone floor—by this point Harry had completely thrown the whole pretending-to-be-a-ghost thing out of his mind. His steps slowed down as he reached the first floor, turning around as he tried to hear where the source of the sound had come from, Tom gliding right behind him.

The voice grew louder and clearer, so close that Harry felt like he was surrounded by it. “ _It’s time—to be freed—_ ” Then suddenly it came to a halt. Harry stopped dead in his track, waiting for the voice to speak up again.

“Harry,” Ron said, stopping beside Harry, “What—what is this all about?”

“ _The thing—it’s somewhere here—we need to find to it!_ ” Harry said. They had ended up in a small corridor with a handful of classrooms, only a few steps away from the Grand Staircase. He looked around, eyes still wide, fully expecting a monster to pop out of nowhere. Nothing came forth.

“Harry, you need to tell us what is going on!” Hermione said, panting as she made out the words. “Is the voice leading here?”

“ _Of course it is—why else would I be here?_ ” Harry asked impatiently, anxiously scanning around the corridor. Nothing was there. No monster, no dead body of some student, not a sign of anything alive.

Hermione paused for a second, then her eyes widened as realization suddenly hit her. “Harry.” She said, eyes growing wide, “You aren’t speaking English—you are hissing, Harry. The monster—of the chamber, it’s a _snake_. Just like we thought.” She traced off, “Now I need to look into magical reptilians…”

“A—what?” Harry didn’t even realize he wasn’t speaking English. He exchanged a look with Tom—the latter was also blinking in confusion, but honestly Tom had seemed pretty confused throughout this entire night. He looked around again, slowly working through the possibility of a giant snake traveling inside the castle, hiding in the internal structures of corridors, rooms, even tubes…

Harry shuddered at the thought—what was scarier than the idea itself was the fact that the whole scenario was very much possible…

He almost jumped when a high pitched voice suddenly appeared behind all three of them, whipping his head around so fast he felt like he was going to break his neck. “Harry!” The person said, and as Harry turned around he saw no other than Professor Lockhart, “Ah, Hermione, and Ron! What a great night! I see, chatting with a ghost? Good day, Mr. Riddle!” He said to Tom.

There was an awkward pause in the corridor, as all four of them stared at Lockhart, trying to comprehend what just happened. Tom blinked and decided to outright ignored Lockhart, sank into the floor and disappeared out of sight. Lockhart didn’t seem the slightly fazed by Tom’s disinterest: “Ah, ghosts, knowledgeable beings—not without a temper eh? Reminds me of that old ghost I put out of misery with an—”

“Ur, sir, the feast—” Harry began, now desperately wanting to get out of this place. He briefly turned around to glance at Ron and Hermione, who both had their mouth shut tightly. A hundred questions were already circulating in the back of Harry’s brain. What is Lockhart doing here? Did he not go to the feast? Wait—was he calling Tom “Mr. Riddle?” Where the hell did _that_ come from?

“Yes, the feast! Oh boys, did you leave the feast early just so you can have some time exploring around the castle?” Lockhart ranted on delightfully, walking closer and placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder, “I remember when I did the exact same thing in my third year at Hogwarts! Unfortunately I ran into a ghoul on my way to the west tower, and I…”

Lockhart continued on with his story as he half pushed Harry towards the direction of the Great Hall. “The last part of the feast is always the most enjoyable!” He claimed, a strange smile on his face, “I’ve always wanted to dance with the living skeletons, ever since I caught one alive in the village of Alazonia!”

Harry mumbled a couple words in agreement as they approached the Great Hall. At the doors he stared up at the blood-red letters again, reminding himself to go back to the corridor and check what was there. But before they could sneak into the Great Hall a little figure suddenly dashed past them—it’s Peeves.

 _What is he doing here?_ Harry thought to himself. Shouldn’t all ghost be attending Nick’s celebration—oh wait, he actually didn’t remember seeing Peeves at the party…so where did he go this whole time?

Before Harry could form a vague idea of what was going on, Peeves swooped up to the ceiling and burst out laughing. “Student down! Student down!” He yelled into the Great Hall as he glided across the tables, voice so sharp and giddy it could pierce the entire castle, “There is a student dead in the castle! West wing, first floor—poor little Creevey, he angered the heir!” He continued to take his party hat off and throw it into the air like it’s some kind of exciting occasion, “The heir is back! He’s back!” He zoomed towards the entrance of the Great Hall and up towards the ceiling again, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—”

“Oh hell.” Harry’s heart sunk to his stomach. He exchanged a look of horror with Ron and Hermione, before slipping into the crowd as Lockhart pushed his way towards the head table. Dumbledore ordered the head of each house to do a headcount and determine if anyone was missing from the feast as Harry tried to process what seemed to just have happened.

West wing, first floor…could it possibly be where they had…just come from?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me such a long time to update! Enjoy :>


	16. Chapter 16

Almost immediately, Lockhart pushed past Harry and the students in front of them to make some loud comments. Harry exchanged a worried look with Ron and Hermione before slipping into the crowd of the Gryffindors, who were now standing up and gathering around Percy, the Gryffindor Prefect. One of the Weasley twins—whichever one it was—moved towards them.

“Where’ve you been?” He asked, “Did you see anything out there?”

“Er,” Hermione quickly said, before Harry had a chance to answer, “We were—with Professor Lockhart. We’ve been sorting letters from his fans—”

“There must be a lot to go through.” Parvati Patil said with a strangely sympathetic tone, “So many people wanting to meet him, and we are lucky enough to see him every single day—” She went on to talk about Lockhart with Lavender Brown, but quickly silenced herself when Percy reached them, holding a checklist in his hand and calling out everyone’s names.

“Every Halloween has to be ruined by something.” A girl whom Harry didn’t recognize sighed as Percy shuffled through the crowd, yelling everyone’s name, “If this is another of Peeves’ prank, I swear to Merlin I will hunt him down and murder that prick.”

 _Better a prank than an actual dead student_ , thought Harry. Many of the professors had already left the Great Hall—hurried off to wherever Peeves pointed them—leaving Professor McGonagall and Sprout in charge of the scene. Percy announced that the Gryffindors were missing two sixth year students, two third years and one first year, and was promptly told to lead the students back to the Gryffindor tower, as were all the other prefects. It was at this point Harry decided he couldn’t just leave the scene without doing something. He began to walk towards the head table, but Hermione grabbed his sleeves the moment she sensed his movement: “Harry! Where are you going?”

“We should tell Professor McGonagall about the things I heard.” He whispered back, “It could help the professors—”

“If we’re seen being connected to this—” Ron began nervously. 

But Harry already made up his mind. “If someone dies because I didn’t tell the professors about the voice, I won’t forgive myself for the rest of my life.” He said sternly, “I can certainly leave you out of the equation—”

“Ignore him.” Hermione said as she not-so-secretly stomped on Ron’s foot, “That’s a great idea, Harry. Let’s do this.”

They lagged behind the group of Gryffindors, and slipped away as students flowed out of the giant door. Harry approached Professor McGonagall, who was discussing something with Professor Sprout and started:

“Professor McGonagall—”

“Mr. Stark-Lokason.” McGonagall turned around, surprised, and raised an eyebrow at them, “Mr. Weasley. Ms. Granger. You should all be with your prefect, heading back to your dorms right now.”

“Professor, there’s something we need to tell you, about the Chamber of Secrets.” Hermione said, a little bit out of breath.

“This is not something the students should be worried about, Ms. Granger.” McGonagall said, “Now, please head back to your dorms.”

“Professor, I can hear the monster.” Harry burst out. McGonagall literally froze mid-sentence, before turning her eyes on him, “I heard it before Ms. Norris went missing—and I heard it, today, just before we came in.”

Now Professor McGonagall’s face was turning serious. “Please elaborate, Mr. Stark-Lokason. What  _did_  you hear?”

“It talks about being finally free, and sacrifice, and blood. Just today we tracked it to a corridor right next to the Great Hall before it disappeared, and we ran into Professor Lockhart.” Harry paused, “I can understand the language of any intelligent species but we think it’s a snake, since I started speaking in Parseltongue right after hearing it. It probably triggered a switch of mode—”

“Parseltongue.” McGonagall repeated with an eyebrow raised. Then the shock faded and an expression of sudden realization came to her as she probably remembered what she witnessed last year, during one of Harry’s first flying classes. “Right. I shall take note of that.” She nodded, then asked, “May I ask where you were before hearing the…voice?" 

“We were, er…” Harry glanced at his friends, debating whether it was a good idea to talk about the deathday party. Before he could make up his mind Ron said it for him: “We went to Headless Nick’s deathday party. We couldn’t find anything on the Chamber of Secrets, so we thought it would be a good idea to ask the ghosts about it.”

Professor McGonagall raised a curious eyebrow.

“Right.” Harry continued, “And we found out that the chamber had been opened before—and someone died for it—”

McGonagall’s eyes widened slightly before she interrupted sharply. “This is enough, Mr. Stark-Lokason.” She paused, and finally decided, “You have done a good job, Mr. Stark-Lokason, and you have made a wise decision to inform the staff of the situation. Five points to Gryffindor.” Harry nodded, but he wasn’t in the mood to feel excited because of a couple points added to the House Cup. McGonagall continued: “However, Mr. Stark-Lokason, I must ask you to stop your investigation of the matter immediately.”

“But—” Harry frowned, “I am the only one who can hear the monster—as far as I know—”

“I would rather have my students safe, instead of risking their lives investigating something as dangerous as the Chamber of Secrets.” McGonagall said with a definitive tone. She and Harry locked eyes for a moment, before she sighed, “Harry, I truly appreciate your efforts and courage, but please be aware that we, the professors, know what we are doing, and will take precaution in case an incident like such happens again—”

Harry had to fight the urge to comment on this line. The entire Quirrell-situation and the burning of the secret maze happened last year happened all thanks to Professor McGonagall refusing to listen to them. At least this time she was listening, but—goddamn it, she’s trying to keep him away, again. 

He waited for McGonagall’s speech to finish before slowly nodding. “As you wish, Professor.” He said, “I’ll find you again if I hear anything. And thank you for your patience.”

The trio left the Great Hall then. They walked up the stairs quietly, until Hermione suddenly paused her steps and turned to Harry. “What do we do now?” She asked, “If Professor McGonagall said…”

“You think I’m going to stop because she said I should?” Harry raised an eyebrow, “If you do, you clearly don’t know me too well.”

“Thought so.” Ron muttered.

Hermione stared back at him for a few seconds before breaking out a smile. “Okay then.” She said, “Let’s get going. I already have some idea of where to start looking.”

***

It was soon discovered that Colin Creevey—the first year Gryffindor obsessed with his camera—was the victim of the attack. He was found petrified and sent directly to the hospital wing. Not killed, petrified. But it’s not a normal petrification spell like  _Petrificus Totalus_  either, since, apparently, even Dumbledore wasn’t able to easily counter the curse. Rumour began to spread around the school, theorizing what the Chamber of Secrets was, who the heir was, and how he/she managed the attack. Everyone was agitated, nervous, even insecure, as a tense atmosphere revolved around the school. Harry could only imagine how pleased the heir would be. The situation was finally taken seriously now, after being ignored for a good few weeks after the initial writing on the wall. Now he/she’s finally achieved the goal of injecting fear into everyone’s minds…what was the next step?

And for once in his life, Harry wasn’t shoved in the spotlight. Just about everyone in the school was suspected to be the heir, and as it always goes stories and theories surrounding the myth started to go wild.

…Really wild.

“What is with this weird theory—what the hell, my parents are reincarnations of Salazar Slytherin? Do people not have more meaningful things to do than spreading rumours?” Harry said as he absentmindedly played with Dreki, annoyed by the sudden strange rumours going around the school, “The hell is wrong with them—how does this sound plausible to anyone in this entire world?”

Ron was wheezing with laughter. “You know what I heard this morning? Lockhart, that blond buffoon, is the heir. Oh Merlin, if the heir is truly as incompetent as Lockhart, Slytherin wouldn’t even stand a chance.” He giggled, “To think Lockhart—”

Hermione cleared her throat and glared at Ron. Dreki let out a purr and looked around, scanning everyone in sight. She eventually decided to approach Draco, and the latter smiled. Harry watched them and sighed: “So much for a peaceful school year. If I find out who’s starting all this—”

“Aw, come on, it’s not even remotely bad. You are just one of the five hundred candidates on the list, and nowhere close to the top either.” Draco pointed out as he petted Dreki, “Most people would rather believe one of us, the Slytherins, is the heir.” He made a face as Dreki flapped its wings and jumped down from the table, “And to be perfectly honest, you should thank Theodore and Pansy for diverting attention. They are acting exactly like how you would expect the heir to be like.”

“So they’re the ones spreading the words about murdering all the muggle-borns, aren’t they?” Ron said, “Ah, I’ll find a way to murder them first—”

“Is it just me,” Harry asked, ignoring Ron in the background, “Or are you actually enjoying this mess?!”

 Draco grinned. “I don’t enjoy having people killed, but I do like being feared.” He said, then paused and added, “But everyone in Slytherin knows it couldn’t be me. Or Pansy, or Theodore. Blaise has a chance—maybe from his father’s side, but I doubt it.” Blaise raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t object, “To be honest, I expect the heir to be someone from a lesser known family or more likely a half-blood—”

“A half-blood?” Harry was surprised, “Really?”

“For most of the well-known families, we can trace our family tree all the way to a couple thousand years ago, and none of our family contains Salazar Slytherin.” Blaise told him, “And we would know if one of us is related to the great Salazar Slytherin himself—it’s quite an honour, and definitely something to brag about. It’s obvious that the heir didn’t keep the family name of Slytherin—maybe a relative of Salazar Slytherin married a muggle, or into a lesser known family, or maybe they just moved away and went into hiding. Either way, they ended up disappearing in the history of the British wizardry world.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow with interest. “I thought people related to Slytherin really hated muggles.” She made a face, “Marrying a muggle…”

“Maybe Slytherin had a rebellious sister.” Blaise shrugged, “As far as we know, one of them might have even married into the house of Potter.” He said, looking at Harry, “Who knows.”

Dreki let out a squeal. Harry turned to look at the little thing and saw it prying at the bookshelf, as if it was trying to grab something. Draco shrugged. “Now I’m glad we got the Parselmouth thing out of the way last year—imagine how this will turn out if the news about your ability is still fresh in everyone’s mind.” He paused, sounding a bit concerned, “I’m still afraid someone might bring it up soon though. That would put  _you_  in the spotlight…”

Harry grimaced, returning his focus to the conversation. “Can’t be much worse.” He said.

“Can you say something in Parseltongue?” Blaise asked, curious. 

“It’s kind of hard to adjust unless I have an image of a snake right in front of me.” Harry said and reached into his bag, “Wait, I think I still have that—” He tugged at a long silver chain in his bag pack and pulled out a pendant, “Yep. You sure you want to hear this?”

“Oh, you still have that?” Draco seemed surprised. It was the same silver snake with ruby eyes he gave Harry the year before. 

“Of course. Your first gift to me—not gonna throw that away.” Harry made a face, then focused on the snake, “Alright, hello? Am I still speaking English?  _Hello, Mr. Snake?_ ” He focused on his own voice enough to hear a hiss instead of words. “ _Oh alright. Now I’m speaking Parseltongue_.” He glanced around the room and, of course, all of his friends were staring at him, “ _Ahem. Anything else you want me to say?_ ”

“ _What are you doing??_ ” A voice popped up behind Harry. He almost jumped at the sound, but realized it was Tom when he heard the hiss in the voice. “ _I knew I heard Parseltongue._ ”

“ _Blaise wants to hear. So._ ” Harry shrugged, then asked, “ _Were you doing something important? Sorry if I interrupted your—_ ”

“ _Nah. It’s fine._ ” Tom dismissed his question, “ _I was just hanging around Lockhart’s office._ ”

Harry deadpanned. “ _Tell me you didn’t touch anything._ ”

“ _Well, I didn’t ‘touch’ anything—_”

“Um.” Ron raised a hand, “What are you guys saying now?”

“Oh. Sorry.” Harry said, switching back to English, “Tom’s just saying how he’s spying on Lockhart. Again.” Tom glared at him at that, then took a seat next to Blaise, as if he could actually touch the chairs, “Yep. That’s Parseltongue for you.”

“Man, this is awesome.” Blaise exclaimed, turning to Tom, “How do you understand Parseltongue? Is it because you guys share the body somehow?”

“As far as I know, that’s the only possible explanation.” Tom said, almost sounding proud of his abilities. Harry could only wonder how pleased Tom would be if  _his_  talents were revealed. Tom would definitely enjoy the attention—unlike Harry, who just wanted to get as far away from the spotlight as possible…

Draco nodded in agreement. “I’m kind of jealous of this now.” He said, “No one else would understand a thing you’re saying even if they are spying on you. Such a useful thing in exchanging top-secret information…”

“Speaking of Lockhart—I heard he was pestering Madame Pomfrey and Sprout. Again.” Ron said, “I saw him telling Professor Sprout that he can make a Mandrake Restorative Draught in his sleep—”

Blaise snickered. “You’re a fool if you believe in anything he says.”

Draco agreed. “I’d really like to see him go up against Professor Snape.” He shook his head, “Honestly, worst DADA teacher ever.”

“Oh, you obviously forgot dear old Lord Voldemort from last year.” Harry said sarcastically, and all three of Draco, Blaise, and Ron winced. He continued on like nothing happened: “At least Lockhart is better than a mass murdering psychopath…”

“I’m just glad Professor Lockhart agreed to play along with our excuses.” Hermione piped up almost absentmindedly, flipping through the pages of the huge notebook, “No one would believe we were at a deathday party. But Lockhart’s office, sorting out fan letters? Yeah, totally.”

“What are you looking at?” Ron asked, curious. Hermione shrugged. “Oh, just some old school photos and event archives from the library.” She replied, “There isn’t a lot. I’ve been trying to find the Warren girl the ghost lady talked about. Remember? The one who died last time the chamber was opened.” She let out a frustrated sigh, “We can only be certain that it happened after the Ministry was founded, which means I still have like three hundred years’ worth of material to go through…I’m trying to see if I can get ahold of the old newspapers and reports too, especially the old Daily Prophet papers. It started releasing issues since 1743 too, so it most likely covered that kind of a major event. But I haven’t gotten a response from them yet, so I’m just searching through anything I can get my hands on. Oh and I probably should start looking into magical creatures too but I just don’t have the time…”

Both Ron and Harry stared at Hermione in awe.

“So what are  _you_  planning to do?” Blaise asked. Harry turned to face him and raised an eyebrow at the question. “Between us we all know  _you_  are the real heir, or at least, a blood descendent—which means either we have a distant relative of yours somewhere in the school, or you are just very good at lying—” 

Harry blinked and interrupted. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, since when are we sure that I am the— _a_  heir?!”

“Your talent in Parseltongue.” Draco reminded him, “It only runs in the bloodline.”

Harry crossed his arms. “I bet there’s an elective on Asgard that teaches the language…” When all of his friends stared back at him blankly, he sighed, “Never mind that. What were you saying Blaise?”

Blaise continued, “Right. Um, putting that aside, this means that you also have a chance of opening the chamber and controlling whatever is inside. ”

Harry slowly nodded, still a tad bit confused. “Okay…but, I mean, I am not the one controlling the thing—wait.” He paused, “Does that mean I have the ability to put a halt to all this mess?”

“Perhaps. If we know where the chamber is.” Blaise said, “If we can get ahead of the heir…”

Dreki suddenly let out a chirp, interrupting Blaise’s words mid-sentence. Everyone turned to Dreki, and Ron let out a horrendous shriek as he saw a handful of palm-sized spiders all climbing up the walls onto the window sill, escaping from Dreki. Harry almost jumped at the sound—seriously, Ron’s scream was much more nerve-wracking than seeing the spiders themselves.

“Weasley!” Blaise hissed, covering his ears, “What in Merlin’s beard—”

Ron was paler than a ghost. “S-spiders.” He managed, standing up and retreating as far away from the window as possible, “Sorry. Not a huge fan.”

A mere second later, the door was banged open. In the blink of an eye, Tom disappeared into the wall and Dreki jumped out of the window with the spiders. Harry turned and saw—of course, Madame Pince at the door.

Madame Pince was fuming. “This is the library!” She said, “Even if you are in a study room, you should not be yelling, let alone with a voice that could be heard from the other side of the castle!”

“Sorry.” Harry said, “Er, we weren’t expecting spiders…” He pointed at the window, where a few of the spiders were still climbing up the window sill.

Madame Pince let out a yelp. “Oh my.” She said, almost taken aback. After a brief moment she quickly ushered them out of the room, “Alright then, you should all leave this study room. I will ask Hagrid and see if he has any idea what those are.” She said, then warned again, “Still. Remember to be quiet in the library.”

Harry watched her walk away. “Madame Pince demands your silence.” He muttered, glancing around. All the other study rooms were occupied. “Alright. I guess we should get out of here.”

“Just a sec.” Hermione said, walking past Harry to the bookshelves, “Let me put this back.”

“Aren’t you going to borrow it?” Ron trailed after her and asked. 

“It’s not really helpful.” Hermione said, “Obviously the Warren girl wasn’t very involved in anything—she’s not a prefect, not a member of the Quidditch team, never had any special achievements and was never mentioned anywhere.” She sighed, “I just hope the Daily Prophet can give us some clues.”

“I can write to them too.” Draco said, “They wouldn’t dare ignore a Malfoy.” He said, turning to Harry, “Do you have any plans right now? I’m going out to the Quidditch field—you should come too. We can fly together a bit.”

Harry tilted his head and considered the invitation. “Sure.” He decided, “I’ll have fun letting myself loose a bit. Great job on the first match, by the way.”

Ron wasn’t so happy. “I bet Slytherin jinxed the snitch to never appear on our side—”

Draco made a face. “Well, Gryffindor has crappy Seekers. Who am I to blame.”

“I bet Harry is a better Seeker than you are.” Ron challenged.

“Oh yeah? We’ll see.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ends up longer than usual...Enjoy :>


	17. Chapter 17

It was always fun to soar the sky, one way or another. The completely illogical design of a broomstick aside, Harry wasn’t going to deny it was a lot of fun chasing a chestnut. Ron was bugging him about signing up for the team again. Harry wondered if modifications like adding a seat would violate the rules of Quidditch games. Like, goddamn it, it actually hurts to ride one of those brooms and put your entire body weight on it for even as short a time as an hour.** And what’s the longest Quidditch game ever played again? He remembered hearing Ron say something about over a month...

Hell no. He’s never going to sign up for a Quidditch team if that is even a possibility.

“How do you always find the snitch that quickly?” Draco asked incredulously. On an average, Harry was able to spot the snitch literally every thirty seconds, and he only ended up losing because of the terrible broomstick that just wouldn’t fly like a normal broomstick does. And still it was a close call. Draco was inclined to let Harry use his broom, just to see how Harry could perform if provided a better tool...alright, Draco would certainly have done exactly that if Weasley wasn’t buzzing around, yelling stupid lines every once in a while, distracting everyone while not even catching the snitch once. Kinda annoying. There were at least five separate occasions when Draco was seriously considering kicking Weasley out of sight so he and Harry can, just, be alone...

“I don’t know. I just...see them, you know. Maybe I have a snitch-magnet implanted.” Harry said absentmindedly as he returned the school broom to the broom shed. He wondered what Tom was doing right now. The fire’s tickling inside of him, like it’s actively guarding against something… _Weird_ , he thought. But at least it’s not lashing out yet…still good.

“Harry would’ve definitely won if he had a better broomstick.” Ron said gloomily. Ron was not talented to be a Seeker—that much was clear from even this one game—but Harry could see him being a Keeper if he actually put the work into practicing. Maybe after Oliver Wood graduated it would become a possibility. Somehow, someway, Ron seemed strangely content to just see Harry great at being a Seeker.

“Well, we’ll never know now.” Blaise said as he rejoined the group. He said he would rather stay on the ground at the beginning, and proceeded to watch the three of them fight over the chestnut. “What is this broom? It does look terrible.” He commented, picking up the broomstick Harry just put down. He looked down at the body of the broomstick closely and said: “Merlin, it’s worse than the toy I had when I was like three...”

“It’s a Shooting Star.” Ron said, sounding proud to know something Blaise didn’t, “The kind that’s made like fifty, sixty years ago. And Harry still managed to catch the snitch twice! Harry, you really should join the team.” He turned to Harry and said in a serious tone, “Seriously, if only you had a better broom...” He said, then glared at the two Slytherin, “If only our  _team_  had better brooms we would’ve kicked their ass—”

Draco snickered. “Yea yea, go on with your fantasy.” He smirked, “Not my fault that you guys can’t afford twelve Nimbus.”

Harry kept quiet. After a while, as they were all heading towards the castle, he asked thoughtfully: “Do you think they allow modifications on the brooms?”

“Depends on what modification you’re talking about.” Draco replied. After a second, as if suddenly grasping the implication of that line, he whipped his head around and stared Harry right in the eyes with a certain kind of shock on his face: “Please tell me you are not thinking about applying muggle technology to all the Gryffindor’s broomsticks—”

Harry made a face. “Just a thought.” He said, “Make it more comfortable, at least get it past sound speed, and I think my dad has a prehensile control system in development so the broom could  _actually_  react on command...”

Ron was staring at Harry with his mouth opened. Harry smiles and shook his head before Draco or Ron had a chance to start arguing why it would be a terrible idea. “Just kidding. Not really going to happen since—if the broom did all that it would mean everyone would need a suit of armour to survive and—nope. Not gonna work.”

Draco didn’t say anything but looked clearly relieved. Harry shrugged.  _Maybe I can ask if dad could make me a customized broom. Just for fun_. He thought to himself as they walked into the castle. The tickling feeling from the fire had faded by this point, but Tom still wasn’t back yet.  _I really need to check on what he’s up to these days_ , Harry thought to himself. 

When they reached the Entrance Hall there was a strange sight. A large group of people were gathered around the notice board, where a new piece of parchment was pinned up. Harry and Ron exchanged a look and looked up at the parchment. “There’s a duelling club starting?” Harry read out, “Tonight, eight o’clock, Great Hall…ooh, that sounds interesting.”

“I bet it’s because of everything that’s been happening—can the monster actually duel though?” Ron asked with interest, reading the sign, “I hope they teach some good spells.”

“Most probably going to be non-harming spells though.” Harry noted, “I don’t see the professors teaching us dangerous spells that actually might work against a monster…maybe the Shield Charm though, that would be helpful.”

“Which professor is in charge? Does it say?” Draco asked, squinting at the parchment. He sighed after a second, recognizing the name: “Lockhart’s idea. I can only hope so much.”

“No. No no no.” Harry shook his head and looked at the parchment again. “Tell me it’s not him—”

But the name was printed clearly on the poster, on the right bottom corner in a beautiful cursive. Harry groaned, “Hell.”

“Come on, Dumbledore approved this, Lockhart can’t screw this up that bad.” Ron said, “I’m going. You gonna come?”

Harry hesitated. He kind of didn’t want to take another of Lockhart’s class…Draco nudged him on the side: “It’s not like you have other stuff to do tonight, or do you?”

“I guess.” Harry considered all the other things he could be doing but decided to go with his friends. “Hopefully he teaches us  _something_.”

“You can fight me.” Draco commented.

“I doubt they’ll actually allow us to fight.” Harry shrugged, “I mean, the whole school’s gonna be there, even the Great Hall wouldn’t be able to take hundreds of people fighting each other…”

“Scared?” Draco challenged.

 _Right. That’s gonna be so fun._  Harry made a face. “You wish.” He said as he walked into the Great Hall, “See you then.” 

He and Ron met up with Hermione, who dragged them into the library to research magical beasts until the clock struck eight. The long tables had disappeared and instead, a golden stage appeared in the centre of the room. Lockhart was standing on the stage, smiling and flashing his white teeth while crowds of young wizards and witches stood in the room, all with wands drawn, chattering with excitement. Harry scanned the room: “Do you see Draco somewhere?”

Ron edged into the crowd. “Dude, will you just stop talking about him for a second…”

“Gather around! Can everyone hear me?” Lockhart yelled and most students quieted down as he started speaking. Harry wondered why he wouldn’t use the Amplifying Charm like Dumbledore usually does. “Excellent! Thank you. Thank you—this is an honour…”

“This speech is going to take forever.” Harry muttered. He scanned the stage and spotted Snape standing on the other side. Harry blinked. Wonder what  _he_  is doing here…

“Allow me to introduce my assistant here—” Lockhart said clearly and loudly as he referred to Snape. “I don’t want you youngsters to worry—you will have your Potion master back when I’m through with him, no need to worry!”

Snape sneered. Harry let out a breath. He wouldn’t be surprised if Snape “accidentally” killed Lockhart now…

“Now, as you can see, we are standing in the accepted combative position.” Lockhart said as he stood in front of Snape and bowed. He pulled out his wand and held it in front of him like a sword, “On the count of three, we will cast our first spell. Not aiming to kill, of course.”

“Look at Snape’s face.” Ron whispered incredulously, “How does Lockhart not notice that?”

Harry agreed. As Lockhart counted to three, Snape flicked his wand: “Expelliarmus.” He said casually. Lockhart was knocked back by a red jolt of light, and his wand flew into the crowd. The girls almost simultaneously gasped, while some of the Slytherin started cheering for Snape.

“You think he’s alright?” Hermione asked, worried.

“Disarming charm shouldn’t hurt him.” Harry shrugged.

“I know, but he looks like he hit his head…” Hermione’s words trailed off as Lockhart popped back up from the ground. “There you have it! Ah, thank you.” He said as he picked up his hat from the ground and the wand from some girl, “That was a Disarming Charm, excellent idea to show the students, Professor Snape! However, I could’ve blocked it if I wanted to, as you made your move very obvious—”

Snape looked murderous. Fortunately, Lockhart noticed it and quickly said: “Enough demonstration! Now, now, please, get into pairs—” He yelled to the students, walking around the stage with his arms extended out as if he’s ready to hug everyone, “Come on! The Disarming charm is our first spell tonight! Disarm your partner!”

As the crowd quickly spread out and move into pairs, Harry exchanged a look with Ron and nodded at each other. They shuffled to the side of the stage and Harry pulled out his wand. 

“So what’s the gesture we’re supposed to use?” Ron whispered, looking confused, “I definitely missed how Snape moved his hand…”

“It’s a twirl then two flicks.” Harry whispered back, knowing the spell by heart, “Two beats between the first two and…”

Lockhart slowly started counting to three in the background, and Ron shrugged: “You should go first.” He looked down at his hand then up at Harry again, “Er, I trust you to know the spell more than I trust myself.”

“Okay then.” Harry said, “ _Expelliarmus_!” He said and flicked his wrist, and a flash of red light later Ron’s wand was flying out of his hand. Harry grinned.

“Oh Merlin. I don’t stand a chance against you. You would really need to teach me how to do this.” Ron made a face and went to pick up his wand. Lockhart spotted them and gave five points to Gryffindor for Harry’s success and walked towards them. Fortunately, before he could reach Harry, Crabbe and Goyle on the other side of the hall managed to mess something up and people started screaming. 

Harry giggled as he watched Lockhart try to pull apart a pair of entangled Crabbe and Goyle, noticing the disastrous situation. “I learned this spell with Hermione a while back,” He whispered to Ron, scanning the hall. He found Hermione with Lavender a couple meters away—her group was one of the only ones not covered in mud, green smoke, silver puff, and other random stuff, but somehow Lavender had started crying and Hermione was looking extremely awkward standing in front of her. He saw Draco too, who was on the other side of the stage. He had casually disarmed Blaise and was now actively trying to dodge the green smoke shooting out of the wand of a Hufflepuff boy, and when he noticed Harry staring at him, he looked up and smirked at Harry. Harry smiled and gestured back, before Lockhart grabbed his attention again.

“Dear dear.” Lockhart said, straightening his hat, glancing around the space: “Seems I’d better get the successful students to show you all how it works…” He glanced around the room and locked eyes with Harry. Somehow his smile looked…menacing. “Harry, your spell worked on first try. Up you come.”

Harry almost wanted to facepalm himself.  _Fine. Fine_. He thought to himself as he moved towards the stage. Lockhart was deciding on the second candidate now, and almost immediately Snape suggested Draco. Harry let out a breath.

“Ah, excellent idea!” Lockhart said cheerfully, “Please, Mr. Malfoy, Draco, come on up.”

Harry grinned at Draco as the latter climbed up.  _Alright. They ended up fighting each other anyways._  They stood on either side of the stage and Draco smirked and almost winked at Harry. Lockhart held his hand out: “Now, Harry, Draco, please, demonstrate to the class how you would disarm each other.”

Draco smirked. “Watch out.” He said as he raised his wand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** There actually is a cushioning charm invented in 1820 for brooms. I got confused when I was doing research on the subject as it seems to be a literal charm (Hermione used it once) but some people also suggest that brooms now comes with the charm and there is no need for the rider to go an extra step and use the charm every time before riding the broom. I just assume the charm on the old school broom wore off lol.
> 
> Thank you guys for reading! Have a nice Christmas!!!!


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